ReviewMidwives’ and health visitors’ collaborative relationships: A systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies
Section snippets
What is already known about the topic?
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Interprofessional collaborative practice is increasingly encouraged in maternal and child health services due to increasing complexity in patient needs and in healthcare service organisation.
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Midwives and health visitors (public health nurses) are chief care providers to women and their families during pregnancy and the early years, who are encouraged to work collaboratively.
What this paper adds:
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Midwives and health visitors have positive views of interprofessional collaboration, however, multiple factors hinder midwives and health visitors from working together collaboratively.
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Interrelated factors such as structural barriers (e.g. geographical distance, low staff numbers) as well as agency barriers (e.g. different philosophies of care) made communication and collaboration a challenging process.
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Our knowledge of interprofessional collaboration between midwives and health visitors in
Methods
In accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis guidelines (PRISMA, Moher et al., 2009), the review protocol is registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO; Registration number: CRD42015016666).
Results
In the following section, the study characteristics and quality are first considered followed by presentations of findings in relation to each of the four aims. Electronic database searches generated 5329 papers. Additional records identified through reference lists and key authors generated 155 articles, totalling 5484 papers for screening. No new papers were identified from contacting research mailing lists. After screening titles and abstracts, 5237 articles were excluded. Following
Discussion
The current review synthesised the evidence concerning interprofessional collaboration between midwives and health visitors. Overall, the studies reviewed showed that midwives and health visitors valued interprofessional collaboration, and shared the goal of delivering high-quality care to women, their children and families. Despite the acknowledgement of the increasing importance of integration in healthcare services in the last two decades (Rodríguez and des Rivières-Pigeon, 2007), the
Conclusion
This review revealed the challenges to collaborative practice as well as midwives’ and health visitors’ visions of effective interprofessional collaboration. Whilst some discussed enablers to collaboration, others explored difficulties in implementing collaboration in practice. Studies highlighted the importance of increased support through the provision of opportunities to collaborate, to communicate clearly one’s role function to relevant professionals, and to increase shared resources.
Conflict of interest
None declared.
Funding
No external funding.
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Cheryll Adams, Professor Jane Appleton, Professor Jane Barlow, Professor Debra Bick, Professor Dame Sarah Cowley, Dr Toity Deave, Professor Soo Downe, Professor Sally Kendall, Professor Dame Tina Lavender, Professor Lesley Page, Dr Kim Psaila, Professor Mary Renfrew, Professor Jane Sandall, Professor Virginia Schmied, Louise Silverton CBE, Professor Hilary Thomas and Dr Karen Whittaker for their contributions to our literature search.
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