Abstract

Introduction: In the world today, professionalism has a special meaning and significance in various fields of medical science. Although the professional behaviour of students and midwifery professionals is very important, the concept of professionalism in this field is not explained. Aim: The aim of this study was to clarify the concept of professionalism in midwifery and to determine its characteristics. Materials and Methods: The present study was a concept analysis based on the Knafl and Whittemore's method. Six databases (MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL Plus (EBSCO), Web of Science Core Collection (Indexes=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI Timespan) and Scopus were systematically searched using these keywords: "professional behaviour", "professionalism", "professional competence", "professional conduct", "professional practice" and "Midwifery". Qualitative, quantitative, review, mixed method studies in english or persian language with abstracts available, containing the keywords in their title, abstract or keywords and address definition, dimension, and measurement of professionalism in medical sciences and specifically midwifery were included in this study. The articles were synthesised using a content analysis approach. Results: In the initial search, 1983 articles were obtained from six databases and 48 articles were obtained using manual search. After screening of titles and abstracts and removing duplicates, 178 articles were assessed for eligibility and finally, 41 english articles were included in the study. Based on the aggregation of the results from the literature review, three main themes of personal requirements, professional requirements, and intra-professional morality were extracted. Conclusion: The results of present study confirmed the lack of a well-defined definition of professionalism in literature. According to the literature, professionalism in midwifery is a multidimensional concept and the main components of professionalism include personal requirements, professional requirements and intra-professional morality.