O'Donnell Karen J, Gallis John A, Turner Elizabeth L, Hagaman Ashley K, Scherer Elissa, Sikander Siham, Maselko Joanna
Center for Child and Family Health, Durham, NC.
Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC.
Fam Relat. 2023 Jul;72(3):1237-1253. doi: 10.1111/fare.12706. Epub 2022 Jun 3.
This manuscript describes the Day-in-the-Life (DIL) method for assessing child caregiving activities, its implementation, and findings regarding family members' roles and associations with maternal depression symptoms.
Infant caregiving activities are most commonly performed by the mother, although there is increasing acknowledgement of others' contribution. Few methods exist to measure the diverse caregiving activities that mothers and others perform.
Method development occurred within the Bachpan Cohort Study in rural Pakistan ( = 1,154 maternal-child dyads) when the child was 3 months old. The DIL was designed as a semi-structured interview in which the mother describes her child's day from their perspective. Regression analyses were then used to explore the correlation between the DIL and depression symptoms, using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) measure.
The DIL method was easy to administer and displayed excellent interrater agreement. The findings indicated that instrumental caregiving was mostly provided by the mother alone, others in the household tended to contribute more to infant social interactions, and there was more support from others when the mother was less able to provide care (e.g., when ill). Depression symptoms were higher among women who experienced less contribution from family members when the mother was less able to provide care.
The DIL can be deployed to measure infant caregiving activities and associations with maternal mental health.
This method is promising for researchers interested in disentangling the contribution of multiple family members toward child caregiving and its impacts on maternal and child health.
本文描述了用于评估儿童照料活动的“一日生活”（DIL）方法、其实施情况以及关于家庭成员角色及其与母亲抑郁症状之间关联的研究结果。
婴儿照料活动大多由母亲进行，不过其他人的贡献也日益得到认可。用于衡量母亲及其他人所进行的各种照料活动的方法很少。
方法开发是在巴基斯坦农村的巴赫潘队列研究（1154对母婴二元组）中，当孩子3个月大时进行的。DIL被设计为一种半结构化访谈，让母亲从自己的角度描述孩子的一天。然后使用患者健康问卷-9（PHQ-9）量表，通过回归分析来探究DIL与抑郁症状之间的相关性。
DIL方法易于实施，且评分者间一致性极佳。研究结果表明，工具性照料大多由母亲独自提供，家庭中的其他人往往在婴儿社交互动方面贡献更多，并且当母亲照料能力较弱时（如生病时），能得到其他人更多的支持。在母亲照料能力较弱时，从家庭成员处获得较少支持的女性抑郁症状更严重。
DIL可用于衡量婴儿照料活动及其与母亲心理健康的关联。
对于有兴趣厘清多个家庭成员对儿童照料的贡献及其对母婴健康影响的研究人员来说，这种方法很有前景。
