Stress of conscience and affecting factors in midwives in the delivery room

Context: Midwives who perform the act of child delivery, which is one of the most sensitive and private occasions for women, can face the stress of conscience when they fail to perform their duties in this process for any reason or cannot decide what to do. There is very little information about the stress of conscience levels of delivery room midwives.
Aim: This study aims to determine the stress of conscience and related factors in midwives who deliver a baby actively in the delivery room.
Settings and Design: This descriptive and cross‑sectional study was performed in April 2021 at six public hospitals in Kocaeli, Turkey.
Materials and Methods: The study was conducted with 67 midwives who worked in delivery rooms through the census method. The data were collected using a “Demographic Information Form” and the “Stress of Conscience Questionnaire.”
Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics, including frequency, mean, and standard deviation, and analytic statistics, including Mann–Whitney U‑.and Kruskal–Wallis tests, were used.
Results: Among the participants, 61.2% stated that they experienced a guilty conscience while working in the delivery room, and they stated that the biggest (28.4%) reason for a guilty conscience was problems related to mother–infant health. The ethics training of the midwives was a factor that increased their stress of conscience scale internal factors subscale scores (P = 0.01). In addition, being married was a factor that increased their internal factor subscale scores (P = 0.008), and having worked in the delivery room for more than 6 years was a factor that increased their external factor subscale scores (P = 0.02).
Conclusions: The results of the present study, the married midwives, those who had worked in the delivery room for longer than 6 years, and those who had received ethics training were found to have high stress of conscience levels. Sharing the results of such studies with managers can be a guide in solving problems.