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. 2010 Nov 5:4:48-54.
doi: 10.2174/1874434601004010048.

Fathers' Feelings and Experience Related to their Wife/Partner's Delivery in Northern Greece

Despina Sapountzi-Krepia  1 , Maria Lavdaniti, Alexandra Dimitriadou, Maria Psychogiou, Markos Sgantzos, Hong-Gu He, Eythimios Faros, Katri Vehviläinen-Julkunen
Affiliations

Fathers' Feelings and Experience Related to their Wife/Partner's Delivery in Northern Greece

Despina Sapountzi-Krepia et al. Open Nurs J. .

Abstract

Objectives: The study aims at exploring the feelings and the experience of fathers about their wife/partner's delivery.

Background: During the last decades birth attendance by fathers is a common phenomenon across many countries. Fathers' birth attendance may evoke both positive and negative feelings.

Methodology: The study was conducted in a city of Northern Greece. The sample consisted of 417 fathers whose wife/partner had given birth during the previous one week to one year. Data were collected using the Kuopio Instrument for Fathers (KIF).

Results: Father's feelings about their wife or partner were very positive as nearly all (82.1%) of the participants were proud to become fathers and agree that they felt love and were grateful to their wife/partner. However, half of the fathers felt anxious and nervous. 40.7% quite agree that the staff was very professional, that they trusted the staff (45%) and that they were grateful to the staff (38.8%). There is correlation between the "feelings related to the wife/partner" and education (r=0.156, p=0.0047), "being afraid during the preparatory visit at the obstetric hospital" (r=-0.238, p=0.009), and "anxiety during the preparatory visit" (r=0.295 p=0.005). The subscale "feelings related to the environment and staff" correlates with "usefulness of preparatory visit" (r=-0.223, p=0.004) and the subscale of "experiences related to delivery" correlates with "usefulness of preparatory visit" (r=-0.357, p=0.001).

Conclusions: Our results support the findings of previous studies, which indicated that birth attendance by fathers has evoked positive feelings about their wife/partner, the delivery, the staff and the hospital environment.

Keywords: Fathers; Greece; birth attendance; delivery; experiences; feelings; survey..

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