The Impact of Health Education on Parenting Self- Efficacy among Early-married Women

Abstract

Adolescent-marriage has a strong correlation with
poor outcomes on women’s health, such as experiencing
psychological stress and lack of ability in taking care of their
children. This study aimed to investigate the impact of health
education on young mothers’ knowledge and attitude of
parenting, and also to identify the effect on parenting self-efficacy
(PSE). Design: a quasi-experimental and nonequivalent pre-test
and post-test control group design was conducted. Setting: The
respondents were recruited from data in the mother and baby
cohort book in a community health center in Temanggung,
Central Java, Indonesia. Subjects were allocated in one of the
groups using cluster random sampling, with the village as the
random unit. Participants: 37 and 31 young mothers participated
in intervention group and control group respectively.
Intervention: Health education about parenting was given
individually for subjects in the intervention group. Measurements
and findings: PSE was measured pre and post-test using
Maternal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Data analysis was
conducted using independent samples t-test. The results showed
that the improvement score of PSE in the intervention group was
higher than in the control group (p=0.000). The difference of
parenting knowledge post-test between the intervention and
control group was 0.000 (p<0.05). Meanwhile, the difference of
parenting attitude between the groups was 0.348 (p>0.05). Key
conclusions: the improvement score of PSE and knowledge about
parenting in the intervention group was higher than the control
group. There is no difference in score changing of parenting
attitude in both groups. There is a correlation between family
support and mother’s occupation with PSE. Implications for
practice: nurses and midwives need to give parenting health
education for early-married women in a structured way to
improve their PSE.