The Relationship between Stress, Social Support, and Confidence in Paternal Role Perceived by Korean Fathers of High Risk Infants

Purpose: This study aimed to define the level of perceived stress, social support, and paternal role confidence in Korean fathers with high risk infants and investigate how they perceived stress and social support influence their confidence in paternal role. Design and methods: A descriptive study was conducted. The participants were 160 fathers of high risk infants admitted for 72 h or longer in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Using a self-reported questionnaire, high risk infants' fathers' general characteristics, stress, social support, and confidence in paternal role were measured. Results: Fathers' low stress from the sights and sounds of the unit, more family members and fathers' awareness of the infants' prognosis were found to have a significant influence on paternal role confidence for high risk infants, explaining 18.7% variance in the effect. Conclusions: To assist fathers in developing paternal role confidence in their parenting, nurses should comprehend the degree of stress experienced by fathers whose infants were hospitalized in an NICU and offer supportive nursing to them to help them cope with their stress. Practice implications: When preparing a nursing care plan for high risk infants and their fathers, if nurses help fathers to participate in infants' care and offer proper information to them to understand the environment of the NICU, actions taken for their infants, and infants' prognosis, the fathers' confidence in their paternal role is expected to improve. (c) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.