The WA Goldfields Aboriginal Community Antenatal Program—A community midwifery initiative

Abstract

AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge and thank all the women, staff and community members who have been part of this community based Aboriginal Antenatal Program. 2 Abstract AimTo investigate the acceptability and satisfaction with the Aboriginal Community Antenatal Program by staff in the program and partner agencies. DesignA Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats framework guided the research and data collection methods. Mixed methodology was used, accessing qualitative and quantitative information from data bases, program and supporting agency staff. Quantitative data were analysed through a social sciences statistical package. Qualitative data were identified through questionnaires and analysed using thematic analysis. SettingRemote Aboriginal communities in the Goldfields region of Western Australia. Participant sourcesTwenty two participants including program and supporting agency staff. Main outcome measuresThis study measures acceptability and satisfaction of program antenatal and pre-conception activities by program staff and partner agencies. ResultsQualitative results indicate acceptability and satisfaction with the program, identifying a range of organisational, staffing, cultural and interagency issues relating to a model of service provision.Quantitative data suggested positive program outputs from service delivery. IssueLittle is known about the acceptability and satisfaction of community Aboriginal antenatal and preconception programs using partnerships between community midwives and Aboriginal maternal support workers in remote Australian regions. What is already knownAboriginal antenatal and pre-conception health and education is linked to a range of physical, psychosocial and cultural issues. Community midwifery models of care are needed to facilitate responsive strategies for vulnerable clients. What this paper addsEvidence that combined expertise, local knowledge and cultural brokerage attributes of community midwives and Aboriginal maternal support workers have potential to develop a culturally relevant model of community antenatal and pre-conception care.4

Successes and challenges of primary health care in Australia: A scoping review and comparative analysis

“…Service coordination and effective referral links in PHC are crucial if a patient is to receive continued quality care. In our study, although health service acceptability (86%-97%) [44,65,75], and service use [63,64,68,70,89,103,104,125] (Table S7 in the Online Supplementary Document) have increased over time, the number of referrals for behavioural risks for chronic diseases was not increased [129]. Similarly, a study reported that only 38%-49% of chronic disease patients received a referral for their complex health care needs including mental health [53].…”

“…The overall characteristics of included studies are summarized in each section of the key attributes of good PHC delivery [19]. Of 112 studies included, methodologically, 29 were qualitative studies [17,, 20 were cross-sectional [52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71], 15 were mixed-method studies [72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86], 10 were national / state based surveys / census [87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96], nine were retrospective / prospective cohort [97][98]…”

“…, in our scoping review, 36 studies[17,25,30,34,36,44,45,50,53,54,61,65,67,71,72,74,75,79,83,85,90,93,95,96,98- 102,116,122,127,128,131-133] assessed various indicators of access to PHC. Of these studies, 15 studies reported service access[36,45,53,54,71,72,74,83,85,90,99,100,102,122,132), three reported acceptability[44,65,75] and the rest of the studies assessed explanatory factors, barriers and challenges of access and coverage of PHC[17,25,30,34,50,61,67,79,93,95,96,98,101,116,127,128,131,133] (Table…”