Perinatal hospice care in the opinion of nurses and midwives

Abstract

Objectives: Perinatal medicine is a relatively new, dynamically developing branch of medicine. Its main purpose is taking care of a woman in the pre-conception period, pregnancy and delivery, as well as taking care of a newborn baby. The main aim of the study was to assess the state of knowledge and opinion on hospice perinatal care of professionally active nurses and midwives. Material and methods: An original and anonymous questionnaire containing 30 questions was used for the study. 572 nurses and midwives from the Silesian Voivodeship took part in the study. The obtained data were analyzed. Results: Only 31.6% of respondents defined the level of their knowledge of pregnancy and neonatal care as high. 12.8% of respondents were able to indicate the definition of perinatal care and accurately determine its goals. The women participating in the study were in favor of enclosing the information about not attempting resuscitation (DNAR) in medical record of children with incurable disease diagnosed in fetal life (99.3%). Conclusions: The study showed deficits in practical and theoretical knowledge of nurses and midwives in the area of hospice perinatal care. Lack of proper preparation is also one of the most frequently mentioned difficulties in taking care of a child and family with poor prognosis.

Nurses' and midwives' perceptions and strategies to cope with perinatal death situations: A systematic literature review

“…Also, Chan et al (2005) show that many professionals consider their understanding of the bereavement situation to be merely instinctive, and in relation to this, Ravaldi et al (2018) reveal that many of their actions were based on personal beliefs and guided only by compassion; in their study, 75% of nurses/midwives had never attended a course on perinatal bereavement care (Ravaldi et al, 2018), a widespread pattern (Chan et al, 2008, 2010) that, for Jonas‐Simpson et al (2013), could be solved by providing bereavement education in nursing schools or even at work. Our results about training deficits are in line with previous research that has shown a great variability in the bereavement care offered to families, probably resulting from the absence of guidelines on care, in both NPC/PH settings (Cerratti et al, 2020; Dahò, 2021) and mixed settings (NPC‐PH/Obstetrics and Gynaecology [OAG]; Fernández‐Alcántara et al, 2020; Gruszka et al, 2019).…”

“…In contrast to studies such as André et al (2020), Gruszka et al (2019) and Shen et al (2022), Chan et al (2003) showed that the majority of nurses (90.9%) felt positive attitudes and feelings when they provided bereavement care, while Ravaldi et al (2018) reported that a large proportion of nurses (76.8%) felt that they were providing adequate support for the family. In fact, our literature review reveals that high satisfaction usually emerges when nurses/midwives: (a) develop a holistic approach to care, (b) have the ability to provide women and families with opportunities to be with the newborn and (c) can develop postpartum care (Fenwick et al, 2007).…”

“…It can occur in maternity units or in Perinatal Hospice (PH) units. There exist various forms of PH or Neonatal Palliative Care (NPC) (Flaig et al, 2019;Kain& Chin, 2020;Miller et al, 2014) across the world, in which nursing care is also provided.Although these units are not equally well known or similarly widespread (Cerratti et al, 2020;Gruszka et al, 2019;Zhong et al, 2022), nurses and midwives who work in such units are required to deal with stillbirth and perinatal death more often than in a common maternity unit. Often located in NICUs, these programmes and units have proved to be very useful (with psychological benefits) for both families and professionals (Dahò, 2021).…”

Hopes expressed in birth plans by women diagnosed with fetal anomalies: a qualitative study in Japan

“…Cortezzo et al [14] also revealed that more than one-third of the physicians who participated in their study did not have sufficient time to complete the BPs with parents, and that some of the physicians felt uncomfortable creating the BPs with the family. A lack of education and training of healthcare providers on caring for critically ill babies was also reported [22,23]. Documenting women's hopes expressed in BPs is essential for healthcare providers to ably facilitate women to facilitate women's care.…”