Preventive Care in Nursing and Midwifery Journal

Background and Objectives: Men's participation in family care programs is one of the important strategies in maternal and child health care. The present study aimed to evaluate the fathers' function after the transition to fatherhood stage and its related factors.

Materials and Methods: The study was a cross-sectional design that conducted in Zanjan between 2012-2013. The function of 403fatherswere investigated whose wives had delivered in last 8 weeks. The samples were selected randomly, and the data was collected using the Inventory of Functional Status- Father (IFS-F) scale, which in the fathers' function were categorized according to the median cut-off point. The content validity and reliability of the scale was approved using Content Validity Ratio (CVR=0.89) and Cronbach’s Alpha in the function of the components were 0.52- 0.90, respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and kruskal-Wallis H test (Acceptable P value<0.05).

Results: The highest and lowest mean score of fathers' function belonged to the job and social dimensions, respectively. There was an increased level of fathers' participation in home activities (23.2%), and taking care of the other children (30.4%) compared to pregnancy period. The fathers' function dropped by 7% and 27.6% in their job and social activity dimensions, respectively. A significant association was found between the mean score of fathers' function and the marriage age, the number of children, educational level, and the time of first fatherhood experience.

Conclusion: Moderate fathers' function in most of the fatherhood dimensions was remarked in the current study. Given that the importance of the men's participation in maternal and child health care, and influencing of the demographic characteristics on this process, it is recommended that the fathers, and young fathers with low education level particularly, to be attended fatherhood preparations courses.