Midwives’ knowledge and practices regarding the screening for and management of chorioamnionitis: A qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Screening for chorioamnionitis, or the risk thereof, by midwives is largely lacking during antenatal care and no best practice guidelines for chorioamnionitis in South Africa was noted. Aim: To explore and describe midwives’ knowledge and practices related to the screening and management of women who are at risk of or diagnosed with chorioamnionitis. Setting: Public healthcare institutions in a health district in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was used. Ten midwives were purposively included in this study, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them. The data were analysed using an adapted version of Tesch’s eight steps for data analysis. Results: The main theme revealed that midwives lack knowledge regarding chorioamnionitis, resulting in incorrect practices including a lack of screening, misdiagnosis and mismanagement of the infectious condition. Conclusions: Findings of this research showed that midwives lacked knowledge regarding the screening and management of women with chorioamnionitis resulting in incorrect practices in this regard. There is thus a need for midwives to update their knowledge regarding the screening and management of chorioamnionitis and training (e.g. through a short learning programme). Contribution: Findings of this study could be used by midwives to update their knowledge regarding screening and managing women with chorioamnionitis, which is expected to translate to better practices. Moreover, study findings were synthesised with the results of a literature review study to form the basis for the development of a best practice guideline for screening and managing women with chorioamnionitis.