Career development expectations and challenges of midwives in Urban Tanzania: a preliminary study

Abstract

BackgroundApproaches to addressing the shortage of midwives are a great need especially in Sub-Saharan Africa including Tanzania. The midwifery shortage in Tanzania consists of two major causes; the first is the shortage of pre-service nursing training and the second is the low rate of retention as it is difficult to sustain midwives’ career motivations. Lack of opportunities for career development, is one of the most related problems to keep midwives motivated. Continuing education as an approach to career development can heighten midwives’ motivation and cultivate more skilled midwives who can educate other midwives or students and who could raise the status of midwives. Effective continuing education is ongoing, interactive, contextually relevant and based on needs assessment, however there is very limited research that describes Tanzanian midwives perspective of expectations for career development; hence this research is significant for revealing important and meaningful professional desires of midwives in Tanzania.MethodsThis was a preliminary qualitative study, using snowball sampling to recruit 16 midwives in Tanzania. The researchers used a semi-structured interview including probing questions with both a focus group and several individuals. The data were collected from July to December 2013 and coded into categories and sub-categories.ResultsThere were 14 midwives in the focus group interview and two midwives in the individual interviews. Through data analysis, four major categories (with subcategories) emerged: (1) motivation for learning (to achieve the MDGs, and to raise reproductive health), (2) knowledge is power (to provide good practice based on knowledge, to be a role model, knowledge gives higher position and courage, and knowledge enables one to approach to the government), (3) there is no end to learning (hunger for learning, and ripple effect).ConclusionsFrom findings, four major categories plainly showed midwives’ desire for learning, however they experienced a number of barriers to access further education. Continuing education is one of the most important and effective ways to cultivate and retain midwives. In order to respond to the midwives expectations and challenges to overcome the barriers inherent in providing more continuing education, it will be necessary to increase accessible opportunities for career development in Tanzania.

Saving lives with caring assessments: How Tanzanian nurse‐midwives and obstetricians negotiate postpartum practices

“…Similar to Tanaka et al. (), our study reinforces the midwives’ and obstetricians’ desire to share their knowledge and information with mothers, particularly in relation to danger signs, how to care for the baby and the management of nutrition.…”

“…The nurse‐midwives’ and obstetricians’ commitments, moral beliefs, their values towards the mothers and babies were strong driving forces to providing the best care possible to the mothers and babies regardless of the frustrating conditions they sometimes encountered. Tanaka, Horiuchi, Shimpuku, and Leshabari () also found that midwives were eager to increase their knowledge to reduce neonatal mortality and improve maternal health outcomes. Similar to Tanaka et al.…”

Challenges in day-to-day midwifery practice; a qualitative study from a regional referral hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

“…Continued education is one of the most effective ways to heighten midwives’ motivation and cultivate midwives’ skills [22]. Skilled and motivated midwives with possibilities for career development has proven to be an efficient way to reduce mother and child mortality [5].…”

Establishing an Online Continuing and Professional Development Library for Nurses and Midwives in East, Central, and Southern Africa

“…The current definition of CPD varies country by country and, in some countries it is used synonymously with continuing nursing education, continuing medical education, short courses, in-service training, lifelong learning, as well as other terms (African Regulatory Collaborative, 2013). In-service training programs can be important tools in health workforce retention, such as with midwives in Tanzania (Tanaka, Horiuchi, Shimpuku, & Leshabari, 2015), can be used to strengthen service delivery as demonstrated with health workers in Rwanda (Cancedda, Farmer, Kyamanywa, & Riviello, 2014), and is an effective way to improve knowledge and confidence as seen with skilled birth attendants in Malawi and India (Evans et al, 2014). Given the numerous benefits, there is a growing international trend to require and regulate CPD completion for nursing and midwifery re-licensure (African Regulatory Collaborative, 2013).…”

“…However, despite increasing CPD requirements, nurses commonly face barriers to accessing CPD (Richards, & Potgieter, 2010; Tanaka et al, 2015). Due to workforce shortages, high volume patient loads, limited resources, and strained training facilities, as well as great distances to access in-person CPD trainings, nurses and midwives frequently lack opportunities to attend facilitated CPD trainings (African Regulatory Collaborative, 2013).…”