The Effect of Early Parenthood Education on Concerns of Primiparous Women in Performing Maternal Roles

Background and Different concerns in attaining maternal role have negative effects on mother-infant interaction and maternal perception of infant temperament. It also leads to adverse maternal and child outcomes. Therefore, it is important to identify women at-risk, their sources of concern and designing appropriate interventions. This study was conducted to determine the effect of early parental-educational intervention on concerns of primiparous women in performing maternal role. A pretest/posttest experimental design was applied including a control group. The participants were 55 primiparous women attending Mashhad health centers that were randomly allocated to intervention and control groups. The intervention consisted of face to face training sessions, informative booklet and video and two sessions of telephone counseling, that was based on principles of Bandura's self-efficacy. Cambridge Worry Scale was also completed before and 60 days after child birth. The main concerns were the child's future health (4.01±1.01) and current health (3.81±1.19). There was a significant difference between the intervention (28.0±1.8) and control group (33.5±8.3) in the mean score for maternal worry before the intervention (P=0.017). Analysis of covariance showed that the mean score of worry was significantly lower in the intervention group when the effect of pre-intervention worry score was eliminated (P=0.008). Identifying the sources of concern and designing educational interventions based on self-efficacy would positively influence these factors and reduce maternal worry. Therefore, this approach is recommended as an effective, low cost and non-invasive intervention to reduce psychological problems in primiparous women.