Approaches used in investigating family support in transition to parenthood

Abstract

Early support has been acknowledged to be needed in the phase of transition to parenthood, and increasing knowledge is available on the factors enhancing this transition. The issue is to translate the knowledge into practices of preventive care. In this article, our aim is to map out recent research on supporting parents in maternity and child health care and to analyse how the subject of family support has been studied. The data consist of 98 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals during 2000-09. Most of the reported research was Anglo-American, and fell within the academic fields of nursing studies, medicine and public health. The studies were categorized into three groups according to the epistemic perspective that was taken on the subject of family support, the studies focusing on (i) views and perceptions on family support of both clients and professionals (63 studies), (ii) the effectiveness of interventions (27 studies) and (iii) activities in the practices and processes of MCH (8 studies). First, the groups were described with regard to the study participants and the data and methods used. A bias towards the perspectives of risk groups and mothers was detected. Second, we examined the potential of different epistemic perspectives to describe care practices. The article contributes to the discussion about how to examine the practices and processes of health promotion and preventive care in such a way that the 'good practices' identified could be implemented in other contexts than the one studied.

Supporting parenting to address social inequalities in health: a synthesis of systematic reviews

“…There was only brief reference made to other European countries in eight of the reviews. These comprised a Finnish review, which listed only two European programmes in the 98 studies they examined [28], a Dutch review, which compared the Netherlands to the United States and Canada [29], two Cochrane reviews mentioning some studies conducted in Germany and the Netherlands [21, 30], two reviews that referenced Ireland [31, 32], one review mentioning interventions conducted in Switzerland [31] and another that compared Sweden with the United Kingdom [32]. …”

“…In three of the systematic reviews, the aim was to analyse the methods and concepts used in research relating to parenting support. One of these listed the main research areas, the methods used and the groups targeted [28]. The second studied the socioeconomic disadvantage characteristics used in research studies [29], and the third analysed the concept of preparing for parenthood [33].…”

“…Nevertheless , a paper included in the Cochrane database claimed that long-term programmes focusing on teenage parents had long-term positive influences on parent–child relationships [30]. Longitudinal studies could be conducted by carrying out interviews at different points during pregnancy or after the birth [28]. …”

“…Understanding how and in what context interventions were carried out appears to be essential for the evaluative framework [28]. …”

“…For example, France, Germany and Italy were not represented at all in the literature [32], thus creating an “Anglo-American bias” [28]. …”