ABSTRACT
Interprofessional collaboration optimizes maternal-newborn outcomes and satisfaction with care. Since 2002, midwives have provided an increasing proportion of maternity care in British Columbia (BC). Midwives often collaborate with and/or refer to physicians; but no study to date has explored Canadian medical trainees’ exposure to, knowledge of, and attitudes towards midwifery practice.
We designed an online cross-sectional questionnaire that included a scale to measure attitudes towards midwifery (13 items) and residents’ knowledge of midwifery (94 items across 5 domains). A multi-disciplinary expert panel rated each item for importance, relevance, and clarity. The survey was distributed to family medicine (n = 338) and obstetric (n = 40) residents in BC.
We analyzed responses from 114 residents. Residents with more favourable exposures to midwifery during their education had significantly more positive attitudes towards midwives (rs = 0.32, p = 0.007). We also found a significant positive correlation between residents’ attitudes towards midwifery and four of five knowledge domains: scope of practice (rs = 0.41, p < 0.001); content of education (rs = 0.30, p = 0.002), equipment midwives carry to home births (rs = 0.30, p = 0.004) and tests that midwives can order (rs = 0.39, p < 0.001). The most unfavourable exposures were observing interprofessional conversations (66.2%), and providing inpatient consultations for midwives (61.4%). Findings suggest increased interprofessional education may foster improved midwife-physician collaboration.
Abbreviations: BC – British Columbia; UBC – University of British Columbia
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge Dr. Evelyn Cornelissen, UBC Rural Okanagan Family Medicine Residency Program, Faculty for Scholarship, for her contribution to the completion of our research project. We would like to thank Shirley Tam, with the Department of Family Practice at UBC, and Scott Lewis, with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UBC, for helping to distribute our survey to the study population. We would also like to thank Michelle Main at the medical library, Clinical Academic Campus - UBC, Kelowna General Hospital, for her assistance with resources for our literature review.
Disclosure Statement
The authors report no conflict of interest