Development of accreditation standards for midwifery clinical education in Iran

BACKGROUND: Accreditation is one of the most important methods of quality assurance and improvement in medical education. In Iran, there are no specific midwifery education accreditation standards. This study was designed to develop accreditation standards for midwifery clinical education in Iran. METHODS: This study was performed in Iran in 2021. It consisted of two phases. In the first phase, accreditation standards for midwifery education in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and the International Confederation of Midwives were thoroughly examined through a narrative review. The domains obtained from this phase were used as a framework for coding in the second phase. In the second phase, a qualitative study was conducted with a directed content analysis approach to determine standards and criteria for clinical midwifery education accreditation in Iran. Participants were policymakers and senior managers of midwifery education, faculty members of midwifery departments with clinical teaching experience, and final year undergraduate midwifery students. The participants were selected by purposive sampling method, and data collection continued until data saturation. RESULTS: The standards and accreditation criteria of midwifery education from the review study were formed 6 domains: Mission and goals; Curricula; Clinical instructors; Students, Clinical setting; and Assessment. In the second phase, data analysis led to the extraction of 131 codes, which were divided into 35 sub-subcategories, 15 sub-categories, and 6 main categories. CONCLUSION: Implementing the specific and localized standards of clinical midwifery education in Iran can lead to improved quality of clinical education programs.