Midwifery
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to evaluate the efficiency of the midwife preceptors in teaching comprehensive health care for women and their families through exploring how they perceive their roles as educators and from the perspectives of medical students; to assess the number of educational goals achieved. ⋯ this programme encouraged the medical students to adopt broad public health approaches in assessing the health needs of defined communities. It also increased their awareness of the importance of multi-professional teamwork and comprehensive health care for women and their families. At the same time, the programme improved the professional knowledge of midwives, and they were able to appreciate their roles and functions in primary health care, and enhance their self-esteem. The findings also indicated that this programme is an effective way of promoting multi-professional education in medical schools.
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to investigate the knowledge and attitudes towards Down's syndrome screening among pregnant women presenting for prenatal screening in Greece, in order to explore whether Greek women are able to make informed choices. ⋯ on the basis of the current measure of informed choice, we found that knowledge is a weak determinant of uptake of screening. However, the measure focuses on knowledge regarding the screening process, rather than on the condition itself. In addition, informed choice is a far broader concept than the issues covered by the measurement tool. Therefore, it could be concluded that attempts to increase attitude-behaviour consistency (i.e. to increase uptake for women with positive attitudes towards screening and to decrease uptake for women with negative attitudes) could be more successful in increasing informed choice in screening for Down's syndrome in Greece.
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to explore the prevalence of intimate partner abuse during pregnancy and to examine the effect and cumulative effects of different types of intimate partner abuse on health-related quality of life. ⋯ the relatively poor health-related quality of life of the abused women highlights the necessity of developing a checklist or a structured questionnaire that will assist in the detection of different types and combinations of intimate partner abuse, and that will be helpful in the development of more effective preventive interventions or programmes.
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to investigate the relationship between adherence to six of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) Ten steps to successful breast feeding and the duration of breast feeding in first-time mothers. ⋯ socio-demographic and cultural factors may be more important determinants of the duration of breast feeding than some of the very specific hospital practices targeted in the Ten steps to successful breast feeding. From a public health perspective, we may influence the duration of breast feeding through better post-discharge support services, or through interventions that improve attitudes to breast feeding in specific socio-cultural and economic groups.