Mother's level of confidence in caring for her late preterm infant: A mixed methods study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
AIM AND OBJECTIVES: To examine what it means to be a mother of a late preterm infant including a mother's level of confidence in caring for her late preterm infant over time and the effect of maternal depression of this experience. BACKGROUND: Little is known about mothers' experiences of caring for their late preterm infants in the community, including their level of confidence and parenting stress within the context of a supported care environment by public health nurses. DESIGN: A mixed methods study, sequential explanatory quantitative and qualitative study. METHODS: A convenience sample of mothers with LPIs (n = 71) completed questionnaires on maternal confidence (3-4 weeks and 6-8 weeks), parenting stress (6-8 weeks), social support (6-8 weeks) and postpartum depression (6-8 weeks). A purposive sample of mothers (n = 11) underwent in-depth, semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: Maternal confidence decreased from 3-4 weeks-6-8 weeks after delivery, and similar results were found for mothers who reported depressive symptoms. Narratives of the mothers suggested the decrease in maternal confidence over time was influenced by the demanding characteristics of the late preterm infant, the prospect of their rehospitalisation and the mother's reported interactions with public health nurses. Depression had an effect on maternal confidence; that is, the depressed mothers demonstrated less confidence about their caretaking role than the nondepressed mothers at 6-8 weeks. Mothers did not discuss mental health issues, which may reflect the protective effects of social support on emotional instability or an inability to recognise postpartum depression. CONCLUSION: The confidence of mothers with LPIs decreased over the first 2 months following delivery and being home with their infants. Assisting mothers to meet their personal needs and the needs of their infant should promote maternal skills, which will likely increase maternal confidence related to the care of their late preterm infant. RELEVANCE FOR CLINICAL PRACTICE: Characteristics of LPIs contributed more to parenting stress score than parent characteristics; mothers however attempted to normalise the late preterm infant in order to minimise the parenting stress. Evidence-informed brief interventions tailored based on late preterm infant and parent characteristics may improve maternal confidence over time. Healthcare professional should provide education and anticipatory guidance prior to discharge, consistent care in hospital and postdischarge as this may impact maternal level of confidence. Future research needs to examine standards of care for discharge of LPIs and adherence to these standards.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.014 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".