Developing a training programme for midwives and maternity support workers facilitating a novel intervention to support women with anxiety in pregnancy

Abstract

Background The RAPID-2 intervention has been developed to support women with symptoms of mild-to-moderate anxiety in pregnancy. The intervention consists of supportive discussions with midwives, facilitated discussion groups and access to self-management materials. This paper reports the development of a training programme to prepare midwives and maternity support workers to facilitate the intervention. Methods Kern’s six-step approach for curriculum development was used to identify midwives and maternity support workers training needs to help support pregnant women with anxiety and facilitate a supportive intervention. The stages of development included feedback from a preliminary study, stakeholder engagement, a review of the literature surrounding midwives’ learning and support needs and identifying and supporting the essential process and functions of the RAPID intervention. Results Midwives’ reported training needs were mapped against perinatal mental health competency frameworks to identify areas of skills and training needed to facilitate specific intervention mechanisms and components. A training plan was developed which considered the need to provide training with minimal additional resources and within midwives’ scope of practice. The training plan consists of two workshop teaching sessions and a training manual. Conclusion Future implementation is planned to include a post-training evaluation of the skills and competencies required to fully evaluate the comprehensive programme and deliver the RAPID-2 intervention as planned. In addition, the RAPID-2 study protocol includes a qualitative evaluation of facilitators’ views of the usefulness of the training programme.

Promoting mental wellbeing in pregnant women living in Pakistan with the Safe Motherhood—Accessible Resilience Training (SM-ART) intervention: a randomized controlled trial

“…Midwifery-led education classes have been adopted widely as a method of supporting wellbeing, preventing onset of anxiety or depression and better child health outcomes [ 83 ]. Evans et al [ 84 ] advocate providing midwives with suitable training to become competent and skilled at identifying mental health difficulties and delivering the right interventions to pregnant women [ 84 ]. In our study, the CMWs had a two-week training course to ensure that they could guide the sessions independently.…”

Social work, mental health and substance use: a scoping review

“…Recommending more training appears to be a simple solution. However, implementation research points to the complex challenges and lack of success in practice change with this approach (Evans et al , 2022; Lyon et al , 2022; Lyon et al , 2011). It is well known that transforming systems and processes is needed to change practice.…”

“…Integrated care with multi-disciplinary support is the goal of policy and practice in Australia (Department of Health, 2019) and internationally (Wister et al , 2016). However, varied practice competency frameworks and discipline-specific scope of practice suggest systems change is required to effectively implement integrated care although training is typically recommended (Evans et al , 2022; Lyon et al , 2011).…”

The Impact of a Multidisciplinary Experiential Training Model on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Healthcare Workers in Maternity Health Management: A Preliminary Study [Letter]

“…The development stage includes feedback from preliminary studies, stakeholder engagement, a review of the literature around learning and support needs that are useful to assist, organize and summarize specific key issues in clinical and professional skills curriculum development. 4 …”