Religious leaders' nuanced views on birth spacing and contraceptives in Sierra Leone - qualitative insights.

Background: Sierra Leone is a religiously diverse country, with Christianity and Islam being the dominant faiths. This religious landscape plays a significant role in shaping attitudes towards family planning and contraceptives. We examined religious leaders' knowledge of family planning and modern contraceptive methods.

Work-based risk factors and quality of life in health care workers providing maternal and newborn care during the Sierra Leone Ebola epidemic: findings using the WHOQOL-BREF and HSE Management Standards Tool.

Introduction: Before the 2014, Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, healthcare workers (HCWs) faced many challenges. Workload and personal risk of HCWs increased but their experiences of these have not been well explored. HCWs evaluation of their quality of life (QoL) and risk factors for developing work-based stress is important in helping to develop a strong and committed workforce in a resilient health system.

'Even when you are afraid, you stay': Provision of maternity care during the Ebola virus epidemic: A qualitative study.

Objective: to explore nurse-midwives understanding of their role in and ability to continue to provide routine and emergency maternity services during the time of the Ebola virus disease epidemic in Sierra Leone.

Design: a hermenuetic phenomenological approach was used to discover the lived experiences of nurse-midwives through 66 face to face interviews. Following verbatim transcription, an iterative approach to data analysis was adopted using framework analysis to discover the essence of the lived experience.

Strengthening pre-service training for skilled birth attendance - An evaluation of the maternal and child health aide training programme in Sierra Leone.

Background: The high maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone combined with an ongoing shortage of midwives has led to the introduction of new cadres of healthcare workers. Maternal and Child Health Aides are one such cadre and now provide 56% of patient care. The quality of the education training programme for MCHA is therefore of paramount importance if high quality maternal care is to be provided.

Building capacity for skilled birth attendance: An evaluation of the Maternal and Child Health Aides training programme in Sierra Leone.

Objective: Maternal and Child Health Aides (MCH Aide) in Sierra Leone provide the majority of maternity services at primary care level. To formulate recommendations for improving the quality and scale-up of MCH Aides training an evaluation of all schools across Sierra Leone was undertaken.

Design: Structured, direct observation of two randomly selected teaching sessions per school using pre-tested standardised review forms.