This thesis addresses two important issues in midwifery: I) the care and support provided by midwives to women and their families facing vulnerable circumstances during pregnancy and childbirth, and II) the role and tasks of clinical midwives in Dutch hospitals.

1. Introduction Most western societies are currently faced with an ageing population, decreasing workforce and increasingly technology-supported care. Whilst digitalisation of healthcare and care technology developments are demonstrating their adequacy and benefits in replacing professionals for certain …

Older care recipients living at home increasingly rely on support from informal caregivers. As informal caregivers often combine these caregiving tasks with other tasks, such as paid work, they are at risk of becoming overloaded. To decrease informal caregiver burden, diferent forms of support are available …

Background: To be accountable to laws and regulations, healthcare professionals spend more than 40% of their time on administrative tasks. The Compulsory Mental Healthcare Act (CMHA) was introduced in Dutch mental healthcare in 2020. It was hypothesized that this legislative amendment would raise the …

A growing number of informal caregivers of older adults combine caregiving with a paid job, raising the question of whether they will be able to meet the increasing demand for informal care. The aims of our study are twofold: first, to describe the development of a model providing insight into the factors …

Abstract Background: Several interventions have been developed to improve physical health and lifestyle behaviour of people with a severe mental illness (SMI). Recently, we conducted a pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial which evaluated the efects of the one-year Severe Mental Illness Lifestyle …

ABSTRACT This study investigates how perceptions of radicalisation and co-occurring mental health issues differ between mental health care and the security domain, and how these perceptions affect intersectoral collaboration. It is generally thought that intersectoral collaboration is a useful strategy …

Therapy alliance has been studied largely in voluntary psychotherapy but less is known about its predictive factors for positive alliance and treatment outcome in forensic populations. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between offenders’ emotional states and therapy alliance. Moreover, …

Background: Although the timely involvement of trauma surgeons is widely accepted as standard care in a trauma center, there is an ongoing debate regarding the value of an on-site attending trauma surgeon compared to an on-call trauma surgeon. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of introducing …

Background: Mentors guide students in their challenges at school and in life. At-risk students in last-resort programs who are at a high risk of leaving school unqualified are especially in need of highly competent and adaptive mentors. This study therefore aimed to identify mentor qualities as perceived …