Mapping factors that may influence attrition and retention of midwives: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

AbstractIntroductionAn appropriately staffed midwifery workforce is essential for the provision of safe and high-quality maternity care. However, there is a global and national shortage of midwives. Understaffed maternity services are frequently identified as contributing to unsafe care provision and adverse outcomes for mothers and babies. While there is a need to recruit midwives through pre-registration midwifery programmes, this is associated with cost and resource implications, and is counteracted to a large extent by the high number of midwives leaving the workforce. It is increasingly recognised that there is a critical need to attend to retention in midwifery in order to develop and maintain safe staffing levels. The objective of this review is to collate and map factors that have been found to influence attrition and retention in midwifery.Methods and analysisJoanna Briggs Institute guidance for scoping reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews will be used to guide the review process and reporting of the review. CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus databases will be used to carry out the search for relevant literature. Results will be screened against inclusion criteria. Data will be extracted using a pre-formed data extraction tool and findings will be presented in narrative, tabular, and graphical formats.Ethics and disseminationThe review will collate data from existing research, therefore ethics approval is not required. Findings will be published in journals, presented at conferences, and will be translated into infographics and other formats for online dissemination.Strengths and limitations of this studyThis will be the first review to systematically map the factors found to influence midwives’ decision to stay in or leave their role as a midwifeScoping reviews provide a rigorous and structured method through which to collate and map evidence on a given topicThis protocol and the full review will follow Joanna Briggs Institute guidance for scoping reviews and will be reported in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping ReviewsThe review will be of relevance to other high income countries but is unlikely be relevant for low and middle income countries