Journal of Depression and Anxiety
Open Access

Abstract

The Attitudes of the First-Time Fathers Towards Involvement in Baby- Care and the Status of Paternal Involvement in Turkey

Sümeyye BAL and Gülten KOÇ

The study was carried out descriptively with the aim of determining the attitudes of the first-time fathers towards involvement in baby-care and the status of their actual involvement. It was realized in the surveillance service and healthy baby clinic of Ankara Zekai Tahir Burak Training and Research Hospital. The sample size was determined as 357. The fathers were interviewed in the maternity ward to determine their opinions about involvement in the birth and in the healthy baby clinic in 10 days after birth to find out the baby-care practices they were involved in. All of the fathers who acquired knowledge were involved in baby-care. 65.0% of the participants expressed their perception of self-sufficiency in baby-care and their involvement rate was higher than that of those who do not feel self-sufficient (p<0.05). 85.3% of the fathers having anxiety of difficulty in baby-care and 92.3% of those without any anxiety were involved in the process (p<0.05). It was found that the involvement rate is lower among the participants in the county town who live in a nuclear family and do not have someone to help with baby-care and whose fathers are at a low level of education (p<0.05). In accordance with the results obtained of the study, it was suggested that the fathers should be involved in the educational and counselling programmed on baby-care in the perinatal process and the participants in the group determined according to the research results should be given special attention.