Effects of Death as a Unique Experience among Midwives in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

Abstract

Uniqueness among human beings is innate and it influences behaviour and way of life. Different people perceive things differently even under the same conditions. Midwives as employees and humanitarian workers are throwing down the gauntlet by the death of their patients at healthcare facilities. Thus, individual midwife uniquely grief the death of their respective patients. However, the uniqueness of grief among midwives in the Ashanti Region of Ghana has not been adequately explored. This paper, therefore, presents the uniqueness of grief among midwives as they experience maternal death at their workplaces. RESEARCH METHODS: Qualitative exploratory and descriptive designs were used. The purposive sampling procedure was used to select 18 supervisors for semi-structured individual interviews and 39 ward-based midwives for eight (8) focus group discussions. Thematic Content Analysis was used to manage data with the assistance of computer data analysis package (Atlas ti version 7.1.7). Ethics were obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Western Cape and the Ghana Health Service. RESULTS: Four main themes emerged from the analysis of the collected data. These are; grieving patterns, intensity and impact of grief experienced, helplessness and duration of grief. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: This study has established the uniqueness of grief among midwives whenever they experienced maternal death. It is recommended that Employee Assistance Programme should be instituted in hospitals in order to help the midwives deal with grief.