What makes a good midwife? An integrative review of methodologically‐diverse research

Abstract

Having good communication skills made the greatest contribution to being 'a good midwife', while being compassionate, kind, supportive (affective domain), knowledgeable (cognitive domain) and skilful (psychomotor domain) also made major contributions. Being involved in education and research were necessary requirements, and midwives' abilities to treat women as individuals, adopt a caring approach, and 'be there' for women were essential. A good midwife can compensate for poor management systems, but women should be able to choose who provides their care, and partners should be involved in this care.

The motivation and capacity to go ‘above and beyond’: Qualitative analysis of free-text survey responses in the M@NGO randomised controlled trial of caseload midwifery

“…Regardless of model of care, participants generally perceived their midwives as Informative, Competent and Kind which is consistent with the integrative review of what makes a 'good' midwife (Nicholls and Webb, 2006) and Australian midwifery competency standards (NMBA, 2006). We interpret the caseload model provided midwives with the motivation and capacity to go Above and Beyond; to be Empowering and Endorphic.…”

“…Qualities including being intelligent, friendly, honest and trustworthy, a good listener and communicator, patient and tactful, sensitive and compassionate, positive and tolerant (Waugh et al, 2014;Nicholls and Webb, 2006;Powell Kennedy 2000); are as important to childbearing women as the midwives' clinical knowledge and competence (Borrelli, 2014;Butler et al, 2008). A phenomenological study in the United Kingdom developed the concept of 'emotional capability' as an attribute, which includes empathy and the ability to connect with women (Byrom and Downe, 2008).…”

What is a good midwife? Insights from the literature

“…According to the literature about this topic, different meanings and interpretations are mainly related to the concept of what is a good midwife. Nicholls & Webb (2006) aimed at identifying a research-based definition of a good midwife that could be used as an operational definition for the purposes of curriculum development. They carried out an integrative review of methodologically-diverse research papers.…”

“…The inclusion criterion was the use of the terms good midwife or good midwifery in the title and/or in the aim of papers. Only six papers explicitly investigated what a good midwife means, including an integrative review (Nicholls & Webb, 2006), a Delphi study (Nicholls et al, 2011), an evolving theory (Halldorsdottir & Karlsdottir, 2011) and three qualitative researches (Byrom & Downe, 2010;Carolan, 2010;Carolan, 2012).…”

A scoping study to explore the application and impact of grading practice in pre-registration midwifery programmes across the United Kingdom

“…Whilst a range of assessment methods were used in the 21 programmes evaluated in this study, all incorporated a combination of conceptbased and practical skills assessment. The importance of assessing all these criteria is supported in the wider literature and across health professions (Fisher et al, 2011;McLean et al, 2005;McLean 2012;Nicholls and Webb, 2006). It is, however, important that there is parity in the measures used to assess competence at point of registration, or inter-assessor reliability and validity is compromised and the consistency of decision-making is put into question.…”