Summary
Background: Caring forms the core of nursing and midwifery. Despite caring being an
important emotional aspect of midwifery and nursing, there are general public complaints
about uncaring behaviour in midwifery. Therefore, there is a need to explore caring from
midwives’ point of view with the hope of identifying solutions and recommendations for
midwifery practice. Furthermore, the study aimed to stimulate debate and discussion about
the caring behaviour of midwives.
Objective: To explore caring during clinical practice as perceived and experienced by
midwives.
Method: The study was contextual, exploratory and qualitative. The participants were
midwives working in state and private hospitals in Tshwane, South Africa where BTech II
and III midwifery learners were allocated for work integrated learning (WIL). Data collection
was carried out through self-report using a questionnaire and focus group. Questionnaires
were distributed to 40 midwives at private and state hospitals in Tshwane. This was followed
by two focus group sessions to ensure that data is enriched. The hermeneutic interpretive
approach was used to analyse data, and analysis continued until saturation.
Results: Themes of caring and uncaring related to patient care and midwives emerged. The
findings illustrated that the midwives had excellent theoretical knowledge of caring, but some
of them did not display caring behaviour during clinical practice.
Conclusion: Some of the midwives did not display caring behaviour. Implication for practice
was provided based on the research findings. Recommendations included measures of
improving caring behaviours during midwifery practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:tut/oai:encore.tut.ac.za:d1001969 |
| Date | 30 September 2013 |
| Creators | Chokwe.ME, Wright,SCD |
| Publisher | Adelaide Tambo School of Nursing Science, Tshwane University of Technology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | |
| Rights | © 2013. The Authors |
| Relation | AOSIS OpenJournals. |
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