Title: The hesitance of nurses to apply for midwifery program in Oman
Abstract:
This study targets to study the reason behind the general Nurses not to apply for Midwifery Program. This qualitative exploratory study was conducted at the largest tertiary health care hospital in Oman. Data collection started on March 2022 until April 2022.
Purposive sampling was applied to recruit the participants of this study. Nurses who did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded from the study such as midwives, applied for midwifery and accepted. Data collection process yield twenty five nurses for data collection process. Triangulation was applied during data collection to allow maximum data required to answer the research question. The triangulation used were , three focus group discussions with nurses who are working at maternity unit and not willing to pursue the midwifery qualification, one to one interview with ward nurses at maternity unit to explore the challenges from the perspectives of leadership, and one to one interview with nurses who applied for Midwifery course and dropped.
The tool was reviewed by expertise in qualitative study and Human Recourse. The protocol included demographic data such as age, Marital Status, Geographical location, and years of experiences. Additional information was collected about introductory statements such as their career in maternal nursing and what does maternal nursing care means to them. The second Question was about the factors associated with the hesitance to apply for the midwifery specialization and what are their opinions about midwifery, what factors motivate and demotivate the nurses to apply for midwifery program. Then the third question was about the impact of midwifery program specialty, consequences of midwives shortage at maternity unit in their opinion and the effect of the specialization to their social life, adding to that, the researchers asked who can support the midwives.
After analyzing the data using thematic coding, three over-arching broad categories were developed: 1) nurses’ perceptions about working in maternity wards, 2) factors influencing the decision to study midwifery program, 3) support and recommendation required for midwives.
This study revealed that Midwives are feeling proud to work in Delivery Suit. However, Nurses believe that due to various reasons, being a midwife can impact their health status due to stress, lack of team work, shortage of Midwives and nurses are not allowed to transfer out of DS after completing the program make them hesitant to apply for Midwifery.
Moreover, financial support, by having a designation, midwifery allowance and Leadership improvement will encourage the staff to apply for Midwifery Program.
Audience Take Away:
-The audience will be able to identify the reasons behind the nurses not to apply for midwifery program.
-What are the factors that contributes the nurses not to apply for the midwifery program.
-What are the motivations and recommendations that the nurses required to apply for midwifery program?
- How will this help the audience in their job?
-Identify the factors and work on the gaps and recommendations to have more participating in midwifery program
- Is this research that other faculty could use to expand their research or teaching?
-Yes, after knowing the factors and nurses’ requirement’s they will be able to select the best methods of teaching a midwives for best practice.
- Does this provide a practical solution to a problem that could simplify or make a designer’s job more efficient?
-Yes by implanting the recommendations of the nurses and work on motivating them to apply for midwifery program.
- Will it improve the accuracy of a design, or provide new information to assist in a design problem? List all other benefits.
- Get a way to motivate the nurses to apply for midwifery program, implement their recommendations and work on the current gaps, give more awareness about the midwifery practice.
