Asian Journal of Pregnancy and Childbirth

Background: Culturally responFIGsive midwifery requires sensitivity to clients’ traditional beliefs and practices while maintaining safe, evidence-based care. This study examined cultural practices, awareness, acceptance and competence among licensed midwives in Sibalom, Antique, Philippines.

Methods: A quantitative descriptive-correlational design was used, with total enumeration of 39 midwives from the Sibalom Rural Health Unit and Ramon Maza Sr. Memorial District Hospital. Data were obtained using a researcher-developed questionnaire and summarised with frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. Spearman’s rank-order correlation was used to examine associations among the study variables.

Results: All 39 eligible midwives participated, corresponding to a 100% response rate. Overall mean scores were within the average category for cultural practices (4.36), awareness (4.77), acceptance (4.69) and competence (5.00). However, 46.2% of respondents were classified as having low cultural awareness, 48.7% as having low cultural acceptance and 41.0% as having low cultural competence. Only 10 midwives (25.6%) had received cultural competence training. The mean competence score among trained respondents (6.50) was higher than that among untrained respondents (4.48). Cultural competence was positively correlated with awareness (rho = 0.654), cultural practices (rho = 0.682) and acceptance (rho = 0.663), with all reported p-values below 0.001.

Conclusion: The findings indicate variation in culturally responsive professional capabilities and significant associations across the measured dimensions. Context-sensitive continuing professional development may support culturally responsive care, but the correlational design does not establish causation.