Exploring safety aspects of maternity care through the lens of midwifery students’ clinical experiences in Belgium, Czech republic, Estonia, Norway, Slovakia: A qualitative study

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15120%2F25%3A73632147" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15120/25:73632147 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://bmcnurs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12912-025-03296-2" target="_blank" >https://bmcnurs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12912-025-03296-2</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12912-025-03296-2" target="_blank" >10.1186/s12912-025-03296-2</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Exploring safety aspects of maternity care through the lens of midwifery students’ clinical experiences in Belgium, Czech republic, Estonia, Norway, Slovakia: A qualitative study

Original language description

Background: Meeting the safety needs of women and newborns is crucial in preventing harm in maternity care. Recent recommendations suggest that childbirth needs to be understood through a broader framework, since maternal and newborn mortality/morbidity remain a global challenge. The unique role of midwifery students in clinical environment can provide and contribute to such understanding. This paper explores aspects of maternity care services impacting patient safety as identified by midwifery students in five European countries. Methods: A 2-stage qualitative design employed an interpretivist approach. Thirty-five midwifery students (Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Norway, Slovakia) were recruited through purposive sampling to engage students with an Erasmus + experience. Stage 1 (2022–2023): Thirty-five written narratives were collected anonymously via an online ‘Sharing LearnIng from Practice for Patient Safety‘ Learning Event Recording Tool. The dataset captured care in antenatal, maternity and postnatal wards. Stage 2 (2024): Three focus group discussions verified and added to the initial findings. Audio recordings were transcribed, NVivo software was utilised to assist reflexive thematic analysis in both stages. Results: Three themes emerged from the analyses. ‘Treat me well’ theme captured the communication gaps and dehumanised assembly-line approach leading to compromised safety, obstetric violence and trauma. The second theme describes the paralysing impact of specific team members in ‘Team dynamics and accountability’, reducing a sense of agency among staff to advocate for patient safety. Theme ‘Traumatised team-members’ reveals the secondary trauma impact on emotional fatigue and defensive practices. Conclusions: Midwifery students emphasised the importance of individualised, well-communicated, and respectful care, with language barriers being addressed. Ensuring that patients feel safe seems equally relevant to physical safety. Collaborative teams prevent errors/hazards through interdisciplinary simulations, debriefings and students’ continuous mentoring. By fostering a psychologically safe environment and implementing whistleblowing policies, the paralysing bystander effect among staff might be mitigated, and obstetric mistreatment, violence, and trauma could be addressed. Unresolved secondary trauma appears to increase unnecessary interventions and reduce the emotional availability of staff for patients in maternity care. Hence, effective recovery needs to be supported by management, and emotional resilience training should be incorporated into midwifery curricula to indirectly improve patient safety. Clinical trial number: Not applicable.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

30307 - Nursing

Project

<a href="/en/project/EF19_073%2F0016713" target="_blank" >EF19_073/0016713: Improving schematics of Doctoral student grant competition and their pilot implementation</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

BMC NURSING

ISSN

1472-6955

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

24

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

"not applicable"

UT code for WoS article

001576010600001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105009715308