Comparative Analysis of Social Responses Between Mothers with Preterm and Term Babies in Teaching Hospital, Ile – Ife, Osun State

Abstract

Social response is the ability of a person to adjust to a new environment or circumstances with the goal of becoming a better person. Parenthood is often seen as a happy, gratifying, and fulfilling experience. Due to various reasons, babies’ gestational age inclusive, mothers may exhibit diverse social responses. This can affect maternal bonding, immediate child’s care and future development of the child, the family and society at large. This study therefore was conducted to comparatively analyze the social responses of mothers with preterm and term babies. The study adopted a quantitative descriptive non-experimental comparative survey design. A sample size of 98 and 102 mothers with preterm babies in neonatal and term babies in postnatal wards respectively in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile-Ife, Osun State were selected using a purposive sampling technique. A self-designed questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha consistency scores ranging from 0.78 – 0.88 was used for data collection. Data were analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 using both descriptive and inferential statistics at 0.05 level of significance. Result showed that both group of mothers had higher positive social responses, mothers of term babies exhibited a slightly higher positive social response (84.3%) compared to mothers of preterm babies (76.5%). There was a significant difference between the social responses of mothers with preterm and term babies. However, the social response mean difference (0.078) was not statistically significant (p= .168). In conclusion, this study shows that women who experience a preterm birth express increased negative social responses compared to mothers with term babies. It was recommended that health care providers especially nurses must be adequately skilled with the ability to detect, and intervene promptly and appropriately in prevention and management of negative social responses in newly delivered mothers.