Background
In Malawi, a midwifery case book was written in the 1970s for all midwife students in the country. Since then, all students have been recommended to complete at least two case studies and report their work in this book before taking their final exam to get their midwife license. Studies have shown that students who complete the case book perform better in the examination and in their professional practice, compared to students who don’t complete it. However, many midwifery colleges don’t use this book in the recommended way. At Malamulo College of Health Sciences, only 15,7% of the students completed the case book in the past three years and only 9,7% passed their final exam.

About the project
This project was created to re-introduce and strengthen the use of the case book at Malamulo College of Health Sciences. The project team received funding from UNFPA, which they used to review and update the old case book to include new trends in midwifery practice. 43 copies of the new edition were delivered to the college and both the tutors and students were trained on how to use this book. In addition to this, the project team, together with the National Midwives Council of Malawi, also conducted a training on the use of the book for tutors from all midwifery colleges in Malawi.

Results
After this project ended, the number of midwifery students passing their final college exam had increased from 9,7% to almost 100%. All midwifery training colleges in Malawi have adopted the updated case book and the project team have continued to train newly recruited midwifery tutors to ensure that they also incorporate the new edition in their teaching.

Year: 2009