title: Factors that influence midwives to serve as preceptors: an American College of Nurse-Midwives survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Projected shortages in the primary care workforce underlie a need for more women's health care providers. In order to prepare more midwives to address this deficit, educators require additional clinical placement sites for students. The purpose of this study was to determine factors that influence practicing midwives to serve as preceptors.
  
  
  METHODS
  An e-mail invitation to participate in an online survey was sent to 7658 current and lapsed members of the American College of Nurse- Midwives (ACNM), who provided ACNM with a valid e-mail address. The survey assessed factors that enabled or were barriers for midwifery preceptors. Forced-choice questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Participant comments were analyzed using qualitative descriptive methods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were a total of 1517 surveys completed, for a response rate of 19.8%. Participants were primarily certified nurse-midwives (96.0%) who were in clinical practice (83.9%), with 78.0% in full-scope clinical practice. Participants represented all geographic regions of the United States. The majority of the participants indicated they or someone in their practice could precept a midwifery student. A commitment to the midwifery profession was the most commonly identified motivating factor (58.5%). Larger practices were more likely to precept midwifery students and to accept more than one student at a time. The most frequently identified barrier to precepting was the need to maintain a high patient volume (6.9%). Write-in comments were provided by approximately 500 participants and coded into 9 themes: payment, barriers to precepting, incentives, student characteristics, mechanisms for placement, communication, giving back, preceptor qualifications, and professional issues.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a strong commitment from preceptors to give back to the profession through the teaching of the future generation of midwives. Many of the barriers to precepting could be addressed by ACNM, the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education, and individual midwifery education programs.
authors.forename: Elaine
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Germano
authors.forename: Mavis N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Schorn
authors.forename: Julia C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Phillippi
authors.forename: Kerri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schuiling
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002568:Certification; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D008875:Middle Aged; D008880:Midwifery / Q000193:education; D009042:Motivation; D009721:Nurse Midwives / Q000193:education; D011231:Preceptorship; D011247:Pregnancy; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: advanced practice registered nurse; graduate education; midwifery; midwifery education; preceptorship; teaching