Knowledge and attitude of first-time expecting fathers toward neonatal care- a study on Indian fathers

Background

Neonatal care means managing the neonate during the transition to extrauterine life and subsequent stabilization. A father's role in a child's life is indispensable and utterly important in helping to determine the child's healthy development, as every child born into this world possesses a set of genes from his/her mother and half from his/her father.

Objectives: i) To assess and correlate the knowledge and attitude of first-time expecting fathers toward neonatal care. ii) To determine the association of knowledge and attitude of first-time expecting fathers towards neonatal care with selected socio-demographic variables.

Method

A descriptive study was conducted on a sample of 100 first-time expecting fathers visiting the Antenatal Clinic (ANC) and Outpatient Department (OPD) of selected tertiary care hospitals selected by purposive sampling technique. Tools consisting of socio-demographic data, a Structured questionnaire to assess the knowledge, and a Likert scale to assess the attitude were used.

Results

Findings revealed that 43% of first-time expecting fathers had an average knowledge of neonatal care, and 89% had positive attitudes toward neonatal care. The mean age of subjects was found to be 29.48 ± 7.05.

Conclusion

According to the present study's findings, most first-time expecting fathers had average knowledge and positive attitudes toward neonatal care. There was a moderate positive correlation between knowledge and attitude at r = 0.412.