A Cross-sectional Study of Midwives’ Perspectives Towards their Professional Educational Needs

BACKGROUND Midwives are one of the most important health care providers and meeting their professional educational needs can be effective in maternal and child health promotion. AIM The aim of this study was to investigate the midwives' perspectives towards their educational needs. METHODS In this cross-sectional study which was conducted in 2012 in Sari, North of Iran, 223 midwives during a convenience sampling method expressed their educational needs. The instrument of the data collection was a self-administered 64-question researcher- made questionnaire about the participants' educational needs in 10 fields related to midwifery profession. RESULTS The mean age and employment record of the participants were 33.87±10.49 and 10.09±8.14 years respectively, and the majority (65.02%) of them was employed in the health care centers. Findings showed that the highest score of midwives' educational need was related to need to education about labor and delivery care (75.14±21.13%) which was followed by the need to education about pre marriage counseling (74.04±19.95%) and pre conception counseling (71.33±21.89%). CONCLUSIONS Owing to the emergence of new dimensions of tasks in midwifery practice and due to developing some changes in the educational needs of midwives, it's necessary to implement an updated educational package in order to deliver the recommended standards of care and to increase midwives' participation in continuing education programs.