Tandon S Darius, Hamil Jaime, Gier Emma E, Garfield Craig F
Center for Community Health, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Institute of Public Health and Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States.
Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jul 15;12:668284. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.668284. eCollection 2021.
There is increasing recognition of the importance of addressing the mental health of fathers, including during the perinatal period. Fathers exhibiting mental health concerns during the perinatal period are at heightened risk for future negative mental health outcomes and are less likely to engage in nurturing relationships with their children, leading to a sequalae of negative child outcomes during infancy and into adolescence. Although interventions have been developed for perinatal fathers, they typically do not focus directly on addressing paternal mental health. To fill this gap, we developed the Fathers and Babies intervention to be delivered to perinatal fathers whose partners (mothers) were enrolled in home visiting programs. A pre-post longitudinal study was conducted in which 30 father-mother dyads were recruited from home visiting programs. Fathers received the 12-session Fathers and Babies intervention while the mother concurrently received the Mothers and Babies intervention delivered to her by a home visitor. Baseline, 3- and 6-month self-report surveys were conducted with both fathers and mothers. Fathers and mothers had statistically significant decreases in perceived stress between baseline and both follow-up time points, with moderate effect sizes generated for both sexes. No statistically significant differences were found for depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, or perceived partner support, although we found small effects for reductions in depressive symptoms among fathers, as well as increases in the percentage of fathers and mothers who reported high levels of emotional and instrumental support post-intervention. While preliminary, these findings suggest the potential for Fathers and Babies to positively impact the mental health of fathers in the perinatal period, and also signal the viability of home visiting as a setting for delivering this intervention. Future research should employ a comparison group to generate stronger evidence of intervention effectiveness and include measurement of dyadic relationships and paternal parenting practices.
人们越来越认识到关注父亲心理健康的重要性，包括在围产期。在围产期表现出心理健康问题的父亲未来出现负面心理健康结果的风险更高，而且与孩子建立养育关系的可能性较小，这会导致婴儿期及青少年期一系列负面的儿童成长结果。虽然已经为围产期父亲开发了一些干预措施，但它们通常并不直接侧重于解决父亲的心理健康问题。为了填补这一空白，我们开发了“父亲与婴儿”干预项目，将其提供给伴侣（母亲）参加家访项目的围产期父亲。我们进行了一项前后测纵向研究，从家访项目中招募了30对父母。父亲接受为期12节的“父亲与婴儿”干预，而母亲同时接受家访员为其提供的“母亲与婴儿”干预。对父亲和母亲都进行了基线、3个月和6个月的自我报告调查。父亲和母亲在基线和两个随访时间点之间感知压力均有统计学显著下降，两性的效应量均为中等。在抑郁症状、焦虑症状或感知到的伴侣支持方面未发现统计学显著差异，不过我们发现父亲的抑郁症状有所减轻，干预后报告高水平情感和工具性支持的父亲和母亲的比例也有所增加，虽然这些影响较小。虽然这些结果是初步的，但它们表明“父亲与婴儿”干预项目有可能对围产期父亲的心理健康产生积极影响，也表明家访作为实施该干预的一种方式是可行的。未来的研究应采用对照组以更有力地证明干预效果，并纳入对二元关系和父亲养育行为的测量。
