An exploratory qualitative analysis of student midwives views of teaching methods that could build their confidence to deliver perinatal bereavement care

Discussion: Although this study has addressed delivery of education that relates to midwives, the findings are cross transferable to other healthcare educators, practitioners, and students. Several solutions are proposed that could potentially build student confidence to deliver bereavement care: lecturers should (1) encourage group discussion in the classroom to help build student confidence to emotionally cope during real bereavement events; (2) ensure students gain exposure by encouraging qualified midwives to include them in real bereavement events early on in their training, and (3) develop packages of perinatal bereavement scenarios for simulation and rehearsal in the clinical skills laboratory. Post-implementation, it is recommended that these teaching strategies be evaluated.