The Study on the Effects of Parent Role Education Program for infants health promotion : Focusing on the twelve-months results

Abstract

This longitudinal quasi-experimental research was conducted to develop parent role education program and to evaluate the effect of this program for mother-infant interaction, childrearing environment and infant development. The subjects were the healthy infants weighing over 2,500gm at birth, whose gestational age was more than 37weeks, and their healthy mothers. The sample consisted of eighteen mother-infant dyads for intervention group and sixteen dyads for control group. Data were collected from March 15th in 1999 to Jun 20th in 2000. The intervention group received programmed education consisted of discharge education, telephone counselling, and home visiting care. But control group were collected data without programmed education. In this study, the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale(NCATS) devised by Barnard was used to determine the mother-infant interaction, HOME was used to determine the childrearing environment, and Griffiths mental development scale was used to determine the infant development. The data were analyzed using SPSS Win using chi-square test, t-test, and repeated measure ANOVA. This study was focused on the results of twelve months time point. Summaries of the results were as follows: 1. There was no significant difference in mother-infant interaction(NCATS) between intervention group and control group. But both of two groups showed significantly higher in interaction score at twelve months than at six months in the subscales of social-emotional growth fostering, and responsiveness to caregiver. 2. There was no significant difference in childrearing environment(HOME) between two groups at twelve months. But when each subscale of HOME was examined, intervention group showed higher scores in the dimensions of maternal involvement with child(p=.001), and maternal emotional-verbal responsivity(p=.048). 3. There was no significant difference in GQ of the Griffiths mental development scale between two groups, although significant difference was found in performance subscale. 4. Infant development at twelve months showed significant correlation with mother-infant interaction and childrearing environment at six months, although mother-infant interaction and childrearing environment at twelve months did not show significant correlations with infant development at twelve months. 5. Developmental scores at six months showed significant correlations with variety in daily stimulation, and mother's emotional, verbal responsivity, whereas developmental scores at twelve months showed significant correlations with acceptance of child behavior at six months, and appropriate play material at twelve months. In conclusion, the maternal education program for primipara showed long term effect in some categories in organizing the childrearing environment, and fostering the infant development. We suggest further study and implications of parent role education program for high risk parents such as parents in low economic status or with premature babies.