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. 2021 Sep;8(5):2622-2636.
doi: 10.1002/nop2.803. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Parental-couple separation during the transition to parenthood

Åsa Gamgam Leanderz  1   2 , Jenny Hallgren  1 , Maria Henricson  3 , Margaretha Larsson  1 , Caroline Bäckström  1
Affiliations

Parental-couple separation during the transition to parenthood

Åsa Gamgam Leanderz et al. Nurs Open. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate factors associated with parental separation during the parenthood transition.

Design: Prospective, longitudinal and explorative.

Methods: This is a quantitative longitudinal study of N784 subjects throughout the pregnancy journey with multivariate regression analysis of survey data derived from three validated measurement scales; the Sense of Coherence scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Perceived Quality of the Dyadic Relationship scale conducted 2014-2016.

Results: N17 participants separated at 2 years. Parental separation was significantly greater for those women and partners with low or changing sense of coherence, perceived social support and perceived quality of the parental-couple relationship indexes. Partners with a change in sense of coherence (p: .003) and perceived quality of the parental-couple relationship (p: .020) between 1 week and 2 years were at greater risk for separation. Attending professional preparatory support with a partner for women (p: .013) and attending the "Inspirational Lecture" for partners (p: .046) were, to a lesser extent, associated with a risk of parental separation.

Keywords: divorce; midwife; parenthood; pregnancy; transition.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Flow chart of Longitudinal Study, with response rate presented in n and (%): T2 = First week after childbirth; T3 = 6 months after childbirth; T4 = 1 year after childbirth; T5 = 2 years after childbirth
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Sociodemographic Factors, Professional Preparatory Support and validated Instruments used in this study, Sense of Coherence (SOC‐13)(Antonovsky, 1996 ) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) (Ekbäck et al., ; Zimet et al., 1988) and Quality of Dyadic Relationship (QDR36) (Ahlborg, Persson, et al., 2005), number of questions or items, named dimensions, type of scale, ranging and index score range. A higher score represents a high; positive perception assessed SOC, MSPSS or QDR, respectively
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