Background: Mothers develop expectations regarding midwives’ care during labour and when these are not met mothers become dissatisfied and eventually have negative experiences of their labour. It is only when mothers’ voices are heard by midwives in the labour ward that efficient and quality care will be provided. To ensure mothers have a positive experience of labour, midwives should include mothers’ expectations when caring for them.Objective: The purpose of the study on which this article is based was to determine mothers’ expectations of midwives’ care during labour. To achieve this purpose the researcher sought to explore and describe mothers’ expectations of midwives’ care during labour in a specific public hospital in Gauteng.Method: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual study design was used. Face-to-face, in-depth individual interviews were conducted with mothers about their expectations of midwives’ care during labour. Data were then analysed with an open descriptive method of coding (Tesch’s eight steps) that is appropriate for qualitative research to identify categories. The data was also analysed by an independent coder. The categories were subsequently placed within a holistic health promotive nursing theory that encompasses body, mind and spirit.Results: The findings revealed the provision of comfort and support as the two main aspects that the mothers expected from the midwives’ care. The mothers expected midwives to improve their communication skills with them (mothers) as well as with fathers or partners if they were available. The mothers expected midwives to facilitate bonding between mother, father and baby, and also encouraged the midwives to improve their (midwives’) knowledge, skills and morale.Conclusion: The results of this study should assist midwives in providing holistic quality care to mothers during labour, thus providing satisfaction and positive experiences of the mothers’ labour.

Background: The increase in nurses enrolling in postgraduate programmes as well as the need to improve their completion requires academics to establish environments conducive for postgraduate studies. The challenges experienced during postgraduate studies have to be identified to establish conducive environments. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore and describe the challenges experienced by postgraduate nursing students enrolled in postgraduate coursework and research programmes at a South African university. Methods: An exploratory, descriptive and qualitative design was used. The study was contextual in nature. Purposive sampling was used. Fifteen honours, master’s and doctoral students participated in the study. Data were analysed through qualitative content analysis and measures to ensure trustworthiness, and ethical implementation of the study were implemented. Results: Three themes with categories were identified, namely personal challenges (i.e. finances, employment, family and accommodation), academic and institutional challenges (i.e. workload and time constraints, contact sessions, subject information and assessment) and research-related challenges (i.e. information literacy, supervisory relationship and supervisory structure and process). Conclusion: Institutional support addressing personal, academic and research-related challenges should be provided to enhance student experiences and completion.

Of all hospital staff, nurses are the most exposed to violence in the workplace that can cause long-term negative effects. The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of violence against nurses in acute care psychiatric wards in a Gauteng hospital to promote the nurses’ mental health. A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used by purposively sampling nurses who had experienced violence. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted. Nurses had experienced physical, sexual and psychological violence and perceived the risk factors of violence to be mental health care user-related. They described the physical and emotional effects of the violence they experienced. Recommendations are made to prevent violence and manage incidents after their occurrence to promote nurses mental health.