Perceptions of pregnant women regarding student accoucheurs’ involvement in maternal health care in the Free State Province

Abstract

Worldwide midwifery has been regarded as a female domain until recently where female and male student nurses are trained to become midwives/accoucheurs. Most women are still reluctant to receive maternal healthcare from student accoucheurs. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the perceptions of women regarding student accoucheurs’ involvement in maternal health care in the Free State Province. A descriptive, exploratory, qualitative research design was undertaken. The study was conducted in the Free State Province. Three regional hospitals, two district hospitals and five Primary Health Care clinics were purposefully selected to make a total of 10 maternal health care institutions that were used as data collection sites. Data was collected using one on one semi-structured interviews with 30 women in the post-partum period, 18 years of age and above, attending for post-natal health care services at the Free State maternal health care institutions. Data was organised and stored using ATLAS.ti program and analysed using Tesch’s open coding approach. The majority of the participants did not approve of student accoucheurs’ involvement in maternal health care. The perceptions of the participants were influenced by cultural beliefs, values, socio-economic factors and social interactions. The study findings cannot be generalized to the other provinces because the study was contextualized to the Free State Province. This study highlights the importance of understanding and consideration of cultural diversity in the provision of health care services.

Keywords

• Accoucheurs
• Cultural believes
• Maternal health care
• Perceptions
• Pregnancy