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Valuing the midwife's role in the midwife/client relationship
Author(s) -
McCREA HALLY
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of clinical nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1365-2702
pISSN - 0962-1067
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2702.1993.tb00130.x
Subject(s) - autonomy , dilemma , nursing , value (mathematics) , set (abstract data type) , qualitative research , psychology , medicine , sociology , political science , social science , philosophy , epistemology , machine learning , computer science , law , programming language
Summary• The unique role of the midwife is to care for childbearing women through help and assistance. This study set out to identify those factors which influence the midwife/client relationship. • A qualitative approach using in‐depth interviews with 16 mid wives was adopted for the study to generate explanations of midwives' understanding of the factors which affected the midwife/client relationship. • Dilemma analysis of the interview data identified two key factors which affected how the midwives related to clients and which centred on different aspects of the midwife's role. They include:— the nature and value of the midwife's role, — the recognition of authority/autonomy in practising this role.• The findings are discussed and a number of recommendations made for changes relating to midwifery education, practice and organizational issues. • It is concluded that these changes are crucial if the midwife/client relationship is to be of therapeutic value to clients.