Duty of midwives support to encourage the father role acquisition and its related factors

Purpose<br> A purpose of this study was to determine the support to encourage the father role acquisition of duty midwives and to determine its relevant factors. And it is intended to obtain a suggestion to examine the construction of the family care system in the perinatal period.<br>Subjects and Methods<br> A self-administered questionnaire was used with midwives currently working in hospitals and clinics. The investigation was given factor analysis about an item of the support to promote the acquisition of the role as father. And the investigation was given a t test and the one-way layout analysis of variance of the difference of the scores by the attribute of the nurse midwife.<br>Results<br> Four hundred and twenty-two midwives completed the survey (a valid response rate of 93.6%). Eight factors were extracted from the results of the factor analysis: having a supportive attitude toward fathers, preparing fathers for their role during delivery, encouraging awareness of being a father, encouraging peer support, encouraging and reinforcing the father's support of the mother, promoting attachment, supporting the father's needs, and facilitating communication between both parents. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for each factor ranged from 0.72 to 0.95. Although the behaviors captured by the factors "encouraging and reinforcing the father's support of the mother", "promoting attachment", "preparing fathers for their role during delivery,! "having a supportive attitude toward fathers," and "facilitating communication between both parents," and were being performed comparatively well. The scores showed significant variances based on years of midwife experience, number of midwife, whether the couple attended parenting classes, whether the father was present at the delivery, and whether the father received childcare guidance.<br>Conclusions<br> Support to encourage the father role acquisition of duty midwives years of experience and the number of midwives was related. In order to encourage acceptance of fatherhood, midwife must first acknowledge that the father is also undergoing a transition into parenthood. Therefore, fathers should be provided with systematic networking opportunities with other fathers. In addition to benefits of the father's presence at the delivery, there are also potential benefits of conducting classes for men about becoming parents. Both of these should be taken into consideration when encouraging role acceptance.