effectiveness of Young Mothers' Prenatal Group: A quasi-experimental panel study.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
ISBN-13: 9780494220443
Description: This pilot exploratory study evaluated the impact of the Young Mothers' Prenatal Group (YMPG) on single adolescent mothers' health and social outcomes. The YMPG provides comprehensive health and social intervention to pregnant and parenting adolescents aged 16 to 21 who are at risk for decreased health and social outcomes. The YMPG is a two-day prenatal seminar with informal prenatal and postnatal case management follow-up, and a one-day postpartum reunion. YMPG is based in one inner-city Toronto hospital.It appears that the YMPG has an effect on maternal confidence but does not have a large effect on young mothers' levels of social support and depression. Future evaluations would benefit from a more intensive intervention, longer-term evaluations, much larger samples and a methodologically stronger design.Young mothers delivering at a comparable inner-city Toronto hospital which does not have an adolescent prenatal program were included as a comparison group. Intervention mothers (n = 37) were followed from prenatal to postpartum status (before intervention, shortly after childbirth, and three months postpartum). Comparison mothers (n = 30) were surveyed at childbirth and at three months postpartum.Three primary outcome variables were examined: social support (Medical Outcomes Social Support Survey), depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) and maternal confidence (Pharis Self-Confidence Scale). This research draws on an integration of two existing theoretical approaches (Social Networks and Social Support, and Social Cognitive Theory).Analysis focused solely on the intervention group, using one-way repeated measures ANOVA, indicated a significant time effect from the prenatal to three-month postpartum period in the intervention group on each of the three main outcomes: social support, maternal confidence and depression. In addition, the analysis revealed that inner-city Canadian young mothers are a highly disadvantaged population with many problems including depression, poverty, and housing and food insecurity.The findings from this pilot study, using repeated measures MANCOVA, indicated that young mothers in the intervention group had significantly higher levels of maternal confidence than young mothers in the comparison group at three months postpartum. However, there were no significant differences between the groups in the levels of social support and depression.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: A, page: 0349.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

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