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Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds
BACKGROUND: In the Netherlands, prenatal screening follows an opting in system and comprises two non-invasive tests: the combined test to screen for trisomy 21 at 12 weeks of gestation and the fetal anomaly scan to detect structural anomalies at 20 weeks. Midwives counsel about prenatal screening te...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4223558/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25037919 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-14-237 |
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author | Gitsels–van der Wal, Janneke T Manniën, Judith Gitsels, Lisanne A Reinders, Hans S Verhoeven, Pieternel S Ghaly, Mohammed M Klomp, Trudy Hutton, Eileen K |
author_facet | Gitsels–van der Wal, Janneke T Manniën, Judith Gitsels, Lisanne A Reinders, Hans S Verhoeven, Pieternel S Ghaly, Mohammed M Klomp, Trudy Hutton, Eileen K |
author_sort | Gitsels–van der Wal, Janneke T |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: In the Netherlands, prenatal screening follows an opting in system and comprises two non-invasive tests: the combined test to screen for trisomy 21 at 12 weeks of gestation and the fetal anomaly scan to detect structural anomalies at 20 weeks. Midwives counsel about prenatal screening tests for congenital anomalies and they are increasingly having to counsel women from religious backgrounds beyond their experience. This study assessed midwives’ perceptions and practices regarding taking client’s religious backgrounds into account during counseling. As Islam is the commonest non-western religion, we were particularly interested in midwives’ knowledge of whether pregnancy termination is allowed in Islam. METHODS: This exploratory study is part of the DELIVER study, which evaluated primary care midwifery in the Netherlands between September 2009 and January 2011. A questionnaire was sent to all 108 midwives of the twenty practices participating in the study. RESULTS: Of 98 respondents (response rate 92%), 68 (69%) said they took account of the client’s religion. The two main reasons for not doing so were that religion was considered irrelevant in the decision-making process and that it should be up to clients to initiate such discussions. Midwives’ own religious backgrounds were independent of whether they paid attention to the clients’ religious backgrounds. Eighty midwives (82%) said they did not counsel Muslim women differently from other women. Although midwives with relatively many Muslim clients had more knowledge of Islamic attitudes to terminating pregnancy in general than midwives with relatively fewer Muslim clients, the specific knowledge of termination regarding trisomy 21 and other congenital anomalies was limited in both groups. CONCLUSION: While many midwives took client’s religion into account, few knew much about Islamic beliefs on prenatal screening for congenital anomalies. Midwives identified a need for additional education. To meet the needs of the changing client population, counselors need more knowledge of religious opinions about the termination of pregnancy and the skills to approach religious issues with clients. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4223558 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42235582014-11-08 Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds Gitsels–van der Wal, Janneke T Manniën, Judith Gitsels, Lisanne A Reinders, Hans S Verhoeven, Pieternel S Ghaly, Mohammed M Klomp, Trudy Hutton, Eileen K BMC Pregnancy Childbirth Research Article BACKGROUND: In the Netherlands, prenatal screening follows an opting in system and comprises two non-invasive tests: the combined test to screen for trisomy 21 at 12 weeks of gestation and the fetal anomaly scan to detect structural anomalies at 20 weeks. Midwives counsel about prenatal screening tests for congenital anomalies and they are increasingly having to counsel women from religious backgrounds beyond their experience. This study assessed midwives’ perceptions and practices regarding taking client’s religious backgrounds into account during counseling. As Islam is the commonest non-western religion, we were particularly interested in midwives’ knowledge of whether pregnancy termination is allowed in Islam. METHODS: This exploratory study is part of the DELIVER study, which evaluated primary care midwifery in the Netherlands between September 2009 and January 2011. A questionnaire was sent to all 108 midwives of the twenty practices participating in the study. RESULTS: Of 98 respondents (response rate 92%), 68 (69%) said they took account of the client’s religion. The two main reasons for not doing so were that religion was considered irrelevant in the decision-making process and that it should be up to clients to initiate such discussions. Midwives’ own religious backgrounds were independent of whether they paid attention to the clients’ religious backgrounds. Eighty midwives (82%) said they did not counsel Muslim women differently from other women. Although midwives with relatively many Muslim clients had more knowledge of Islamic attitudes to terminating pregnancy in general than midwives with relatively fewer Muslim clients, the specific knowledge of termination regarding trisomy 21 and other congenital anomalies was limited in both groups. CONCLUSION: While many midwives took client’s religion into account, few knew much about Islamic beliefs on prenatal screening for congenital anomalies. Midwives identified a need for additional education. To meet the needs of the changing client population, counselors need more knowledge of religious opinions about the termination of pregnancy and the skills to approach religious issues with clients. BioMed Central 2014-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC4223558/ /pubmed/25037919 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-14-237 Text en Copyright © 2014 Gitsels–van der Wal et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Gitsels–van der Wal, Janneke T Manniën, Judith Gitsels, Lisanne A Reinders, Hans S Verhoeven, Pieternel S Ghaly, Mohammed M Klomp, Trudy Hutton, Eileen K Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
title | Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
title_full | Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
title_fullStr | Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
title_full_unstemmed | Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
title_short | Prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
title_sort | prenatal screening for congenital anomalies: exploring midwives’ perceptions of counseling clients with religious backgrounds |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4223558/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25037919 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-14-237 |
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