The Role Of A Smartphone App For Providing Feedback On Midwifery Training

Abstract

Background: Student midwives currently provide feedback at the end of a placement. Smartphone technology allows student midwives to provide specific daily feedback on their placement and allows mentors to provide daily feedback on the student’s performance. Methods: Surveys of students and mentors were undertaken to assess current perceptions of feedback at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Results: 55 student midwives and 61 mentors completed the surveys. 56% of students only provided formal feedback on the mentoring they received annually. 52% of mentors disagreed that they had enough opportunities to provide feedback on the performance of their mentees. 85% said that they never received feedback on their performance as a mentor. Conclusions: Using a Smartphone App to provide daily feedback on mentoring could allow students to provide a daily assessment of their training. Mentors could use the App to provide daily feedback on the student’s performance. This would help overcome the issues highlighted by the survey