Making midwifery visible – survey of midwives and midwifery students

Introduction: The midwifery workforce in both Northern Ireland and Ireland play a vital role in the provision of quality maternal and newborn care. Within both countries, there are significant challenges in recruiting and retaining midwives, resulting in a strained maternity care system (RCM, 2021; INMO, 2023). It is crucial to therefore remind midwives of their reasons to take pride in their profession and make the important work of midwives visible. Recognising their contributions and reaffirming the impact of their work can boost morale and job satisfaction. By providing midwives with adequate resources, professional development, and supportive working environments, healthcare systems can create conditions that foster recruitment and retention, ultimately benefiting the well-being of midwives and those they care for, infants, women and their families.<br/><br/>Aim &amp; Objectives: The development and evaluation of a digital communication campaign to remind midwives and midwifery students in Northern Ireland and Ireland of meaningful midwifery moments which make them ‘Proud to be’ a midwife.<br/><br/>Methods:<br/>Phase 1 – A piloted questionnaire was disseminated directly to midwives and midwifery students to identify their collective meaningful midwifery moments. Data was then collated and analyzed.<br/>Phase 2 – Involved designing and building of a digital communication resource informed by phase 1 and the PAG.<br/>Phase one, survey data was analysed and primarily descriptive statistics provided. The open-ended responses were analysed as informed by Braun and Clarke’s (2019).<br/><br/>Outcomes: The findings informed the development of a digital communication campaign (including an animation) about what makes midwives and midwifery students ‘Proud to be a midwife’. Quotes from the survey are used to form part of the digital communication campaign. The results from phase two, an evaluation of the effectiveness continues.<br/>Conclusion: This oral presentation will include presenting the findings from phase one and the sharing of the digital communication resource(s).<br/>