Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The descriptive and correlational study was conducted to evaluate the correlation between the maternal role and parenting behavior in the early postpartum period.

METHODS

The study was conducted with 291 mothers, who applied to the Obstetric-Postpartum services of Maternity Hospital in Erzurum between 1 May 2015 and 18 September 2015. The data was collected by using the personal information form, Myself as Mother Scale and Postpartum Parenting Behavior Scale. The data was evaluated by using the descriptive statistics, t-test, one way analysis of variance, Kruskal Wallis, Mann Whitney-U, and Pearson Correlation Analysis.

RESULTS

While the mean score obtained by the mothers from the Myself as Mother Scale was 52.16±6.63, their Postpartum Parenting Behavior Scale mean score was 4.68±1.34. The mothers' age, educational status, place of residence, income level perception, working status, type of family, number of pregnancy and living children, status of planning the pregnancy, status of receiving antenatal care, and delivery method affected the maternal role. The mothers' age, educational status, place of residence, income level perception, working status, number of pregnancy, living children, and stillbirths, status of planning the pregnancy, status of receiving antenatal care, and delivery method were effective on the parenting behavior. It was found that there was a statistically significant and very weak correlation between the mean scores of Myself as Mother Scale and Postpartum Parenting Behavior Scale (r=0.142, p=0.015).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

It was determined that as gaining maternal role in early postpartum period increased, the success of the parenting behavior also increased at very weak level.