HOW STAFF MEMBERS DEAL WITH CASES OF STILLBIRTH REGARDING THEIR AGE AND EXPERIENCE.

Stillbirth is an adverse pregnancy outcome, defined by fetal death prenatally. Both families and staff go through many challenges dealing with stillbirth. Young staff members sometimes have to work with these cases without any experience or insufficient experience, which could be emotionally challenging. Experience helps staff to provide support and information for parents. The aim of the research was to find out how staff members deal with stillbirth cases regarding their age or experience. Research method was surveying midwives and obstetricians in maternity wards. Surveying was done at Riga Maternity Hospital and Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital Perinatal Care Center in January 2017. Survey consisted of questions about experiences working with stillbirth cases. In total 106 respondents completed the survey. 66% (N=70) were midwives and 34% (N=36) obstetricians. Regarding age there were 26.4% (N=28) respondents below the age of 30, there were 35.8% (N=38) respondents with work experience less than 10 years and 24.5% (N=26) staff members were only in learning process. Results showed, that there are differences in the way staff members deal with cases of stillbirth regarding their age and experience. Younger and less experienced staff tends to have more confusion, middle aged and those with experience 10-30 y. have their working abilities affected, but those older than 50 y. feel that these cases are very time and energy consuming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]