‘Navigating the self in maternity care: how Chinese midwives negotiate their individual professional identity in hospital settings?:A Grounded Theory Analysis of Chinese Midwives' Professional Identity

摘要

The study aims to understand how hospital-based Chinese midwives' professional identity is constructed when faced with competing discourses (medical and midwifery) in the professional transition. Constructivist Grounded Theory was chosen to guide the research. In-depth individual interviews were used to digitally record accounts from 15 midwives and 5 women clients. The central problem "identity conflict" emerged as the encounter of two contextual categories: "institutional categorization" and "professional identification". Midwives tried to reconcile the conflicts through a process of "navigating the self in midwifery care", comprised of two parallel phases: one is "negotiating the self of being risk-focused or normality-oriented"; the other is "negotiating the self of being task-focused or woman-centred". Within each phase, midwives employedvarying strategies to position the self on an identity continuum from one end of the "obstetric nurse" to the "professional midwife" on the other, resulting in a hybrid identity. This process is influenced by three factors: the perceived competence, theworking context and the relation with women. The findings presented in this paper are based on interviews with midwife participants, illustrating the first phase of the navigation.