Would a student midwife run postnatal clinic make a valuable addition to midwifery education in the UK?--a systematic review.

BACKGROUND There is growing evidence in the UK that some National Health Service improvements, particularly in the postnatal period, are having an impact on the quality and variety of student midwives' clinical experiences, making it challenging for them to meet the standards set by the regulatory body for midwives and receive a licence to practice. A possible solution to this may be the introduction of a Student Midwife integrated Learning Environment (SMiLE) focusing upon the delivery of postnatal care (PN) through a student run clinic. OBJECTIVE To identify the current state of knowledge, regarding the educational outcomes of students who engage with student run clinics (SRC) and the satisfaction of clients who attend them. Search strategy--BNI, CINAHL, EMBASE, and MEDLINE were searched for articles published until April 2014. SELECTION CRITERIA Studies, nationally and internationally, were carried out on healthcare students running their own clinics. Outcome measures were the evaluation of educational outcomes of students and client satisfaction were included. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Data were extracted, analysed and synthesised to produce a summary of knowledge, regarding the effectiveness of SRCs. MAIN RESULTS 6 studies were selected for this review. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS The findings that SRC can offer advantages in improving educational outcomes of students and provide an effective service to clients are encouraging. However, given the limited number of high-quality studies included in this review, further research is required to investigate the effectiveness of SRC.