Midwives’ perceptions of the performance- and transition into practice of newly qualified midwives. A focus group study | 129 settings. Lastly, we report participants’ perceptions of desired support for NQMs and options for making support feasible in practice. NQMs’ performance Overall, midwives perceived NQMs as well-educated practitioners with little practical experience. Midwives recognised the pre-registration education as a decent theoretical foundation for NQMs to work in practice. NQMs can provide care for pregnant individuals and are able to make decisions based on clinical reasoning. However, participants perceived NQMs’ feelings of insecurity and the need for reassurance in specific situations as caused by little work experience. NQMs need to, in their opinion, learn to cope with their new roles and responsibilities. NQMs were, in their opinion, fully occupied with caring for pregnant individuals, writing reports and administrative tasks. Being self-employed and working as an entrepreneur seemed not yet within their scope of practice. Experienced midwives worried about the lack of relationship-building in practice. NQMs lacked awareness about the importance of being a team member and building a network within the midwifery practice. On the other hand, participants showed compassion for the overwhelming tasks and responsibilities that NQMs encountered in practice. How can we make sure that [NQMs’ qualities] come out? So that they don't get overwhelmed in the meantime, or that there is too much uncertainty and, therefore, they don't get there. (Focus Group (FG) 3.1) Based on experienced midwives’ perceptions of NQMs, we deduced different underlying values for NQMs’ performance in practice: commitment, passion, and availability. Experienced midwives valued NQMs who committed themselves to their work, who were involved with the practice and took the initiative to perform specific tasks. Experienced midwives perceived boundary setting attitudes (such as asking for roster requirements or specific days of the schedule) as being less committed to the challenges that ‘midwifery’ requires in practice. Furthermore, participants mentioned that being a midwife implies being prepared to make sacrifices in one’s private life. Being able to put yourself in second place for the benefit of other things. …but I think that many students nowadays also think from a self-perspective, I am the centre of society principle. And that everything has to be attuned to that. (FG 2.2) Participants mentioned (a lack of) passion, referring to a strong feeling and enthusiasm for the profession.
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