Title : Evaluation of the impact of a parenting intervention program on the parenting stress of a group of primiparous mothers
Abstract:
Background: Becoming a father and a mother is one of the most important and challenging tasks in life. The new demands, particularly those imposed to the mother when she is responsible for childcare, can influence the mother’s ability to respond effectively and make her vulnerable to both physical and emotional disorders such as stress, which affect the mother and the infant’s well-being. Parenting education emerges as a preventive intervention aimed at empowering mothers/fathers to become more self-confident in the performance of their parenting tasks. Thus, the program “More Parents, More Babies” for primiparous women seeks to create a supportive environment and empower them to respond effectively to the parenting challenges at this stage of the life cycle.
Objectives: To assess the impact of a parenting education intervention on reducing the level of parenting stress of a group of primiparous mothers.
Material and Methods: A pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental study was conducted with primiparous mothers in the first six months of life of their infants. The data collection tool was applied to the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG) before and after the intervention. The Parenting Stress Index (PSI), developed by Richard Abidin, was used to determine the mothers’ parenting stress level. The program is composed of 12 groups weekly sessions aimed at mothers, fathers, infants, and grandparents. The sessions were designed based on the collaborative intervention model because it is important not to neglect the participants’ role as key sources of information on their parenting difficulties and needs. The formal and ethical procedures were followed.
Results: A total of 72 mothers participated in this study: 37 in the EG and 35 in the CG. EG mothers were on average 32.78 years old, with a standard deviation of 3.89; 94.6% of the mothers were married and 5.4% were single. With regard to the education level, 56.8% had completed higher education and 43.2% did not have higher education. As regards their professional situation, 93.8% were employed. The paired samples t-test showed statistically significant differences in the EG, before and after the intervention, for total stress and its subscales, At the end, mothers showed lower parenting stress levels when compared to the beginning of the intervention.
Conclusion: Parenting intervention programs are based on the assumption that parents’ insecurities and concerns will decrease if their knowledge improves. If they become more confident in performing their parenting tasks, the conditions are created for their stress levels to reduce. This impact is reinforced in case of a group intervention due to the support experienced within the group and the normalization of experiences. The attendance of the program “More Parents, More Babies”proved to be effective in reducing mothers’ parenting stress levels and, therefore, it can have a positive impact on the effectiveness of parenting skills and improve the child’s development trajectory and the family’s functioning.
The program “More Parents, More Babies” is a manualized program which can be replicated by other professionals in different settings. It can be used by nurses to promote positive parenting. These positive parenting promotion programs based on the collaborative and group model should be included in nurses’ initial and continuous training and their effectiveness with different groups of mothers, fathers, and other caregivers should be further analyzed.
