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"I believe…" - graduating midwifery students’ midwifery philosophies and intentions for their graduate year : A longitudinal descriptive study
Dawson, Kate Wallace, Heather Bayes, Sara
Dawson, Kate
Wallace, Heather
Bayes, Sara
Abstract
Objective
Midwifery graduates may experience transition shock that makes them question their fit for their workplace and the profession and in extreme cases, may lead to them leaving. Understanding graduate midwives’ worldviews, job intentions and work experiences is important to inform retention strategies. Factors such as having a strong professional identity and experiencing strong job satisfaction are important for midwife retention. Conversely, stress, trauma and work-life imbalances are examples of factors that lead to attrition from midwifery. Transition shock experienced by some graduates can exacerbate these factors if not managed effectively. This study aimed to identify causes and impact of any changes in graduate and early career midwives’ philosophy, practice, and intention to stay in the profession.
Design, setting and participants
We invited the 2021 and 2022 cohorts of graduating midwifery students from all educational pathways in Victoria, Australia to participate in a longitudinal descriptive study using a questionnaire with both closed and open -ended questions. This paper reports the findings from 16 participants that completed the first survey of a five-year longitudinal descriptive study.
Findings
The sixteen participants predominantly held a woman centred philosophy and ideally wanted to work in a midwife-led model of care. Although excited about moving into practice, they also disclosed a sense of needing to ‘survive’ in a maternity care system that their beliefs were not fully in alignment with.
Key conclusions
The hopes, expectations and concerns of midwifery students who are anticipating moving into practice in this study resonate with those previously reported and demonstrate the need to consider personality-job fit in supporting this vulnerable group to transition.
Implications for practice
This study provides insights into graduating midwives’ hopes for, expectations of, and concerns about transitioning into practice that may inform the design of transition programs and support expansion of midwifery led models of care.
Keywords
midwifery students, philosophy for practice, work preferences, transition to practice, career goals
Date
2023
Type
Journal article
Journal
Midwifery
Book
Volume
125
Issue
Page Range
1-8
Article Number
Article 103807
ACU Department
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine
Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).