Building capacity of maternity staff to discourage the use of sunlight therapy in the post-partum period and infancy

Summary 

Purpose

To describe the development, implementation and evaluation of an educational intervention that addresses risky beliefs held by midwives and nurses working in maternity areas and new mothers about therapeutic sun exposure.

Procedure

In 2002–2003, 59 midwives and nurses from a hospital in northern Queensland participated in an educational intervention to discourage mothers from exposing themselves and their infants to sunlight for therapeutic reasons. Intervention staff attended an educational workshop and/or received educational resources. Resources (posters, pamphlets and bookmarks) were developed for the staff to use for educating mothers. Process evaluation of the quality and usefulness of the workshop and resources was conducted immediately after the workshop and 12 months later.

Findings

Intervention staff indicated that the workshop was relevant to their work, and increased their knowledge and confidence in talking to mothers about sunlight exposure. Ninety percent of the 59 participants indicated they had used the workshop information in their interactions with post-partum mothers. Of the resources, pamphlets and bookmarks were used most often.

Conclusions and implications for practice

The educational intervention was successful in developing the knowledge of midwives and nurses to provide sound advice to new mothers about therapeutic sun exposure and in developing resources to support them in their education. Although workshops and resources are useful in the short term, they are impractical to sustain. To improve sustainability, content on this topic needs to be incorporated into midwifery and nursing curricula across Australia.

Keywords: Sun exposure, Maternity staff, Education, Infancy, Post-partum period