Research week - Ara Institute of Canterbury - DAY 2

Sessions on day 2 held at Manawa, the Ara Institute of Canterbury campus for health focused studies. Manawa is situated about 10 minutes walk from the city campus, and is situated next to Christchurch Hospital. It was opened just over a year ago and features state of the art teaching spaces, including specialised facilities for running learning through simulations and VR. Programmes located at Manawa include nursing, midwifery and medical imaging.

Kelly Kara – (3 min thesis) Water immersion with complex pregnancy and birth. Kelly presents on work undertaken towards a Master in Midwifery, through Otago Polytechnic. Overview of research question and the supporting rationale, including little research in the area. Qualitative inquiry with descriptive interpretive approaches. Water births seen to be less stressful on mother and baby. People who select this usually have strong views around their choice. Endeavours understand choice and relationship to actual experiences.

 Kylie Short – (3 min thesis) Do patients understand? A review of health education provided to adult patients following a cardiac event or new cardiac diagnosis before discharge home. Overview of PhD study. Overviewed rational and research question. Seeks to correlate individuals’ and health professionals’ perspectives of the information and whether these are congruent. Convergent mixed method design used to analyse the data.

Kate Norris – registered nurse prescribing, examined through the lens of Bourdieu. Another PhD study in progress, a professional doctorate through Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Summarised background, rationale and methodology. Registered nurses may now have a prescribing role but there is not much literature. Selected Bourdieu’s theory of practice as framework – habitus / capital and field = practice. Using semi-structured interviews and observation of team meetings.

Dr. Rae Daellenbach, Mary Kensington & Dr. Lorna Davis – sustainable rural midwifery in NZ / Aotearoa. Presenting on collaborative work with AUT and the University of The West of Scotland. Explores realities of midwifery provision for rural communities. To apply knowledge gained to inform the optimisation of equitable and sustainable rural maternity care. Outline methodology. Reported on themes including joys and challenges; courage and fortitude; and securing the future of rural midwifery. Summarised recommendations include preparation of all midwifes for rural practice to increase empathy; and learning the unique skill sets required for rural midwifery.