Midwives’ self-efficacy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background and Objective: Self-reflection skills enable us to analyse experiences and reflect on our thought processes, generating new capacities for action. The study aims to investigate the extent to which Italian midwives are able to use self-efficacy in the professional and working environment during the covid-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of midwives enrolled through an online questionnaire from July to October 2022. The questionnaire consists of socio-demographic data and work experience data. It was used as a psychometric instrument, “Scale of perceived self-efficacy in the management of complex problems” (Farnese ML, 2007) with four dimensions investigated (emotional maturity, finality to action, relational fluency, context analysis) and scored from 6 to 30. Statistical analysis was performed by STATA 17. Results: The sample consists of 835 midwives. The following mean dimensions were obtained “emotional maturity” 18.1 (CI:17.8-18.3), “finalisation of action” 20.5 (CI: 20.2-20.7), “relational fluidity” 20.8 (CI: 20.5-21.1), “context analysis” 20.7 (CI 20.4-21.0). Those who are slightly/not at all satisfied with their professional fulfilment are more likely to have a low emotional maturity score (OR:2.1;C.I:1.4-3.3). Those who are fairly/very satisfied with their professional fulfilment are more likely to score highly on action finalisation (OR:1.45; C.I:1.1- 2.0). Those who feel that the covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected their emotional experience are less likely to have a high score on emotional maturity. (OR:0.6;C.I: 0-4-0.9).Those who believe that the covid-19 pandemic had little influence on their emotional experience are more likely to have a high emotional maturity score (OR:1.6; C.I:1.1-2.5) Conclusion: Our study shows that personal fulfilment in the care setting strongly influences the perception of midwives self-efficacy and that the covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible scar on healthcare professionals by conditioning their perception of their self-efficacy