Study of the self-confidence of midwifery graduates from Mashhad College of nursing and midwifery in fulfilling clinical skills

INTRODUCTION: Self-confidence is one of the main components of clinical competence, and it is considered to be an important indicator of ability and competence. The aim of this study was to determine the confidence of midwifery graduates from Mashhad College of nursing and midwifery in fulfilling the required clinical skills. METHODS: The study was in the form of a cross-sectional study, and it was performed in 2011 on 50 midwifery graduates who had been working in health centers in Mashhad for six months to three years providing midwifery services, as well as on their supervisors having a minimum of 6 months experiences of responsibility in these centers. The research tools included self-assessment tools of self-confidence in midwives and assessment tools of self-confidence in midwifery graduates in fulfilling clinical skills performed by the supervisors. The validity of the tools was confirmed by face validity and content validity, and the reliability of the test was confirmed by test-retest (r = 0.82). After the data were extracted and encoded, they were analyzed using SPSS software version 11.5, descriptive statistics, the t-test, and Pearson’s test. RESULTS: Among the midwifery graduates, 84.57% of them had confidence in the area of management of low-risk situations, and 55.51% had confidence in their ability to manage high-risk situations. The self-confidence levels of graduates in fulfilling clinical skills in the management of low-risk and high-risk situations were significantly different (P < 0.05). Clinical skills had a positive correlation with self-confidence (P < 0.05, r = 0.85). CONCLUSION: Improvements were needed in the self-confidence of graduates in fulfilling clinical skills in the management of high-risk situations. In order to achieve such improvement, it is necessary to identify and use methods of increasing graduates’ self-confidence in the learning environment by developing an enhanced midwifery curriculum and improved teaching methods.