Coping with Maternal Deaths: The Experiences of Midwives

Experience of chinese counter-marching nurses with COVID-19 patients' death in Wuhan: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic was occurring worldwide with over a 6.5 million deaths. It's important to explore the instructions for the global nursing community by identifying the personal coping methods of Chinese nurses in Wuhan to deal with patient deaths.

METHODOLOGY

The study used a qualitative conventional content analysis with 14 Chinese Counter-marching nurses. Purposive sampling, snowball sampling, and semi-structured interviews were used for participants and data collection. To assess the quality of the findings, Guba and Lincoln's criteria for confidence were fulfilled.

RESULTS

The data analysis results in 4 main categories:(1) psychological shocks related to COVID-19 patient's death; (2) personal psychological adjustment and demands; (3) insights on life and values; (4) Needs for relevant knowledge and skills.

CONCLUSIONS

During the outbreak of the epidemic or pandemic, adequate psychological care resources need to be provided to nurses when facing the death of infectious patients, to reduce the negative emotions brought by death. Effective coping strategies should also be formulated to enhance their resilience and promote their professional competence.

The experience of pre-hospital emergency personnel in breaking death news: a phenomenological study

BACKGROUND

Today, breaking the death of patients to their families has become one of the challenges for medical staff. Considering the lack of study in the pre-hospital emergency, the present study aimed to explore the experience of pre-hospital emergency personnel regarding the breaking death news to families.

METHOD

In this qualitative study with a descriptive phenomenological method, data were collected by purposeful sampling method through in-depth interviews with thirteen pre-hospital emergency personnel in Kermanshah and Kurdistan provinces. After recording and writing the interviews, the data were managed by MAQUDA-10 software and analyzed using the Collaizi approach.

RESULTS

Of 13 participants, five from Kermanshah, eight from Kurdistan, and 12 (92%) were married. The mean age and work experience were 34.38 and 10.38 years, respectively. Five main extracted themes were 1) perceived stress, 2) challenge factors of breaking death news, 3) unnecessary actions, 4) death breaking precautions, and 5) BDN requirements. They were covered fifteen sub-themes.

CONCLUSION

In this study, emergency medical employees were always faced with stress and challenges to announce the patient's death to families, including the stress of violence against employees. Hereof, personnel had to take unnecessary care actions such as slow resuscitation to transfer the patient to the hospital.

"Once you get one maternal death, it's like the whole world is dropping on you": experiences of managing maternal mortality amongst obstetric care providers in Ghana

BACKGROUND

Maternal mortality has a significant global impact, especially in low-resource settings. Little prior research has been conducted on the potential effects of poor maternal outcomes on the personal and professional well-being of healthcare providers. This study explores the in-depth experiences and perspectives of obstetric providers in Ghana who work in a setting with frequent maternal mortalities.

METHODS

This is a qualitative study of semi-structured interviews conducted at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana. Participants were obstetric healthcare providers, defined as midwives, house officers currently rotating on the obstetrics/gynecology service, and obstetrician/gynecologists at any training or practice level (residents, fellows, and specialists). Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and uploaded into NVivo for qualitative analysis. Using the Attride-Stirling qualitative model, an incremental and iterative process was used to code interviews with keyword phrases and develop a framework of organizing and global themes.

RESULTS

Interviews were conducted with 27 participants-15 midwives and 12 physicians (three obstetrician/gynecologist residents, six obstetrician/gynecologist specialists, and three house officers), with sample size determined by data saturation. Obstetric providers' experiences in a setting with frequent maternal mortalities were dependent on their level of preparedness to manage maternal mortalities and the workplace environment. Providers' level of preparedness was dependent on both the training they had received on the medical management of obstetric emergencies, as well as a lack of training on the mental health aspects of coping with maternal mortality. The impact of the workplace environment was dependent on systems failures and limited resources, blame from colleagues and supervisors, and a lack of support in the workplace. In turn, obstetric providers' experiences managing frequent maternal mortalities impacted their clinical care performance and mental health.

CONCLUSIONS

Maternal deaths have profound personal and professional impacts on the healthcare providers who manage them. A large need exists for additional institutional training and support for obstetric providers who manage maternal mortality, especially in low-resource settings like Ghana.

The Experiences of Ghanaian Midwives on the Use of Nonadjustable Delivery Beds: A Qualitative Study

Background

Hospital beds are of great assistance to both clients and caregivers as they give lots of choices to the users. More often, clients have difficulty getting in and out of beds, but the adjustable features of the beds make it possible for them to be comfortable, regardless of their condition. This situation may not be the same if nonadjustable delivery beds (NADBs) are used in conducting deliveries at health care facilities. This study explored the experiences of midwives using NADBs in selected Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) hospitals in the Volta Region of Ghana.

Methods

The study employed an exploratory qualitative research design with purposive sampling. Semistructured interview data were audio recorded. The inclusion criteria were professional midwives with at least 1 year of working skills and the midwives should have conducted deliveries using NADBs during their practice. Data were collected concurrently with data transcription and analyzed using content analysis. Saturation was reached after the 20th interview.

Results

Three themes emerged from the study: NADBs not comfortable to work with, assumption of awkward postures, and the nature of the delivery beds.

Conclusion

The findings of the study show that midwives experience several setbacks in the use of NADBs in conducting deliveries as they sacrifice their health for work.