Characteristics and changes in the mental health indicators of expecting parents in a couple-based parenting support program in Japan

Implementation and Evaluation of Life-planning Lecture to Enhance Perspective-Taking among High School Students: A School-based Nonrandomized Waitlist Intervention Study in Japan

“…After adjusting for sex and mental health, the intervention group had a 2.3 times higher Perspective-Taking increase compared with the control group. In a previous study of pregnant couples, no significant difference was observed in the Perspective-Taking scale score before and after the Japanese empathy session (mothers: P = 0.70, fathers: P = 0.60) (12) . Although the evaluation index was different in another previous study, which was a parenting preparation study for university students, an improvement in empathy was observed, as in the present study (13) .…”

“…We have prepared a Japanese protocol for this empathy session and are implementing it widely (11) . The empathy session targets couples who are expecting a child; it contains exercises wherein the participants can share their current problems and improve their prospects for life following birth (12) . The original session was developed for expecting couples in Australia (10) and adapted to a Japanese public health service setting.…”

“…The original session was developed for expecting couples in Australia (10) and adapted to a Japanese public health service setting. The tools were modified, taking into account cultural and social factors (e.g., the partner’s time of returning home from work in the discussion scenario was revised from 6 p.m. in the original to 8 p.m. in the Japanese version), to fit with Japanese parenting and family styles (11) , (12) .…”

The Association Between Fathers’ Self-assessment of Their Own Parenting and Mothers’ Recognition of Paternal Support: A Municipal-Based Cross-Sectional Study

“…22 For example, a recent trial in Japan aiming to improve fathers’ empathy toward their partners reported positive effects on preventing maternal postpartum depression. 23 Stepping beyond the traditional male breadwinner model, 3 discussing the agreement and discrepancy between paternal and maternal recognition of paternal parenting could provide scientific evidence for developing a couple-based family support model in Japan. Moreover, this could provide a path for promoting paternal parenting in other countries, especially Asian countries where little work has been done to investigate both parents’ recognition of paternal parenting.…”