Search results

Tese de Doutoramento em Enfermagem apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa.

BACKGROUND: The birth of the first child forwards the new mother to an individual, family and social reset in order to deal with self-caring and parenting skills. Many women in postpartum period report having to deal often with new doubts and/or problems. OBJECTIVE: Identify the main difficulties reported by mothers during puerperium time. Compare those mentioned difficulties, between control group and study group. METHODS: Quasi-experimental design - Control group and study group with 200 primiparous women (100 women in each group). Participants in the study group were submited to at least two home visits during the postpartum period. RESULTS: Chi-square test revealed statistically significant differences between groups, for participants who did not report difficulties (p=0.021). A larger number of mothers in the experimental group did not mention difficulties (38%), compared to those belonging to the control group (23%). The three main difficulties were found: Understanding child's cry - 53% in the control group and 45% in study group; Child feeding - 29% in the control group and 21% in study group; “Psychological changes” are referred by both groups in thirdly. Chi-square test shows differences between groups in this variable (p=0.037) - Control group 27% and study group 15%. CONCLUSIONS: This investigation demonstrated the relationship between home visit and expressed difficulties: a higher number of participants followed during puerperium did not mention difficulties. For those who mentioned difficulties also the groups show different regarding the difficulty in dealing with the psychological changes. More mothers from control group mentioned this problem.