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‘The greatest feeling you get, knowing you have made a big difference’: survey findings on the motivation and experiences of trained volunteer doulas in England

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, September 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (80th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (74th percentile)

Mentioned by

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10 X users
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1 Wikipedia page

Citations

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15 Dimensions

Readers on

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68 Mendeley
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Title
‘The greatest feeling you get, knowing you have made a big difference’: survey findings on the motivation and experiences of trained volunteer doulas in England
Published in
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, September 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12884-016-1086-6
Pubmed ID
Authors

Helen Spiby, Jenny Mcleish, Josephine Green, Zoe Darwin

Abstract

Support from a doula is known to have physical and emotional benefits for mothers, but there is little evidence about the experiences of volunteer doulas. This research aimed to understand the motivation and experiences of volunteer doulas who have been trained to support women during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. A postal questionnaire survey was sent to volunteer doulas at five volunteer doula projects working in low-income areas in England. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed in parallel using summary statistics and content analysis respectively. Eighty-nine volunteer doulas (response rate 34.5 %) from diverse backgrounds responded to the survey. Major motivators for volunteering included a desire to help others and, to a lesser extent, factors related to future employment. Most reported that the training was effective preparation for their role. They continued volunteering because they derived satisfaction from the doula role, and valued its social aspects. Their confidence, skills, employability and social connectedness had all increased, but many found the ending of the doula-mother relationship challenging. For a minority, negative aspects of their experience included time waiting to be allocated women to support and dissatisfaction with the way the doula service was run. Most respondents found the experience rewarding. To maintain doulas' motivation as volunteers, services should: ensure doulas can start supporting women as soon as possible after completing the training; consider the merits of more flexible endings to the support relationship; offer opportunities for ongoing mutual support with other doulas, and ensure active support from service staff for volunteers.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 68 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 68 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 13%
Student > Bachelor 8 12%
Researcher 7 10%
Student > Master 6 9%
Lecturer 5 7%
Other 10 15%
Unknown 23 34%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 14 21%
Nursing and Health Professions 11 16%
Psychology 7 10%
Medicine and Dentistry 4 6%
Business, Management and Accounting 4 6%
Other 2 3%
Unknown 26 38%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 9. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 October 2022.
All research outputs
#3,694,094
of 22,979,862 outputs
Outputs from BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
#979
of 4,227 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#62,505
of 323,116 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
#26
of 101 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,979,862 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 83rd percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,227 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.8. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 323,116 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 101 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its contemporaries.