Legal complaints about midwives and the impact on the profession.
Midwives play an important role in maintaining and increasing women's health and well-being. Training professional midwives is one of the main policies of any healthcare system. Since the number of complaints against midwives has increased recently, this study was conducted to explore the perspectives of midwives regarding patients' complaint to authorities and their impacts on the profession of midwifery.
Being conducted in 2013, this qualitative study was the first of its type in Iran. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 midwives working in different cities across the country. The participants were selected using a purposive sampling method. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed following a qualitative content analysis approach. Written text was then coded, and themes were extracted from the data. Ethical considerations: The study was conducted with midwives' free informed consent and was approved by Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
By analyzing the data, four main themes regarding the impact of complaint on midwifery profession were developed. These included the following: "dissatisfied of midwifery, professional deviation, obsession with work, and weakening of the professional status."
The experience of patients' complaint to legal authorities against midwives was described, by participants, as a painful experience. Lack of midwives' knowledge about professional rules and litigation process created many problems for them and could negatively affect their practice and the society's attitude toward midwifery. Thus, we suggest that in order to prevent such problems, midwives and midwifery students should be educated regarding factors that have the potential to create such problems and also prevention strategies.
Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Department of Midwifery, Tehran Medical sciences Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Akram
A
Peyman
Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Nahid Dehghan
ND
Nayeri
Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran.
Mohammad Esmaeilpour
ME
Bandboni
Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Zahra Behboodi
ZB
Moghadam
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods; D007492:Iran; D007603:Jurisprudence; D008427:Maternal Health Services / Q000639:trends; D008875:Middle Aged; D008880:Midwifery / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000379:methods; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Complaint; litigation; midwifery; professional problems; qualitative study