Main author: Berglind Hálfdánsdóttir
Institution or Company: Háskóli Íslands, Heilbrigðisvísindasvið, Hjúkrunarfræðideild, Námsbraut í ljósmóðurfræði
Co-Authors, Institution or Company:
Leonie Welling, Rotterdam University of Applied Science, the Netherlands. Ólöf Ásta Ólafsdóttir, Háskóli Íslands, Heilbrigðisvísindasvið, Hjúkrunarfræðideild, Námsbraut í ljósmóðurfræði. Elke Tichelman, Midwifery Academy Amsterdam-Groningen, the Netherlands.
Introduction: Leadership is partly taught in the current midwifery curriculum in the Netherlands and Iceland, mostly in the context of management. Leadership skills in advocacy, empowerment, and promotion of physiological childbirth are not defined within the curriculum. The aim of this subsection of the Twinning-Up-North project was to develop a new midwifery education module on leadership and strengthen midwifery leadership skills.
Methods: A qualitative study on the views of midwifery students and their ideas on gaps in leadership education. Focus group and in-depth interviews were performed in three different midwifery schools in Groningen, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Reykjavik, and analyzed using grounded theory. A new education module of 0.5 – 1 ECTS was designed, based on study findings and relevant literature.
Results: The study results have three overarching themes: “The need for leadership to promote physiological birth”; “Helping and hindering factors influencing leadership”; and “The role of education in leadership”. The new education module based on these findings includes: lectures on leadership, advocacy, empowerment and feminism; lectures and role playing exercises on persuasion in rhetorical situations; online and on-site role model lectures; and references to websites on electronic media. The midwifery schools have pilot tested and implemented either the whole module or a part of it, as fits their previous education curriculum.
Conclusions: New education modules can be the first step in a domino effect leading to women’s empowerment and enhancement of midwives’ leadership skills in promoting physiological birth. Enhancing leadership in student midwives will provide midwifery leaders for the future.
