Relationship Satisfaction, Co-Parenting, Spiritual Disclosure, and Religious/Spiritual Coping: Exploring Links to Parents’ Mental Health following a Neonatal Intensive Care Experience

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 1, 7 - 20, 01.02.2024

Gina Brelsford Kim Doheny

https://doi.org/10.37898/spc.2023.9.1.192

Öz

The birth of a child is often a joyous occasion, but when a family experiences a neonatal intensive care stay, there may be mental health and relationship implications. In this quantitative study, 162 former neonatal intensive care (NICU) parents completed surveys related to their anxiety (PSWQ; Meyer et. al., 1990), stress (SASRQ-for NICU; Cardena et al., 2000), depression (CESD-R; Eaton et al., 2004), relationship satisfaction (RAS; Hendrick et al., 1998), and co-parenting (Brief Measure of Co-Parenting; Feinberg et al., 2012) along with self-reports of religious/spiritual coping (Brief RCOPE; Pargament et al., 2011) and spiritual disclosure (SDS; Brelsford & Mahoney, 2008) in the couple relationship. Participants were acquired after soliciting names from a state Bureau of Health Statistics and mothers were contacted via mail with a second survey for her co-parent/partner. Respondents to this survey were married or were living together as partners. Infants were born on average at 31.65 weeks’ gestation and spent an average of 33.23 days in the NICU. The average time elapsed between NICU discharge and parent survey completion was 414 days. Analyses were conducted via SPSS Version 28 and results indicated that there were significant inverse correlations between parents’ mental health and their relationship functioning (spiritual disclosure, relationship satisfaction, and co-parenting). Moreover, parents’ mental health challenges were significantly related to increased use of negative religious/spiritual coping. Finally, after accounting for relationship functioning, parents’ use of negative religious coping had a significant link to their mental health outcomes. Thus, when parents are experiencing difficulties with their mental health after a NICU experience, they may struggle more with their marriage, co-parenting, and engage in more negative religious/spiritual
coping. Therefore, additional research is needed on ways to support parents’ mental health, relational functioning, and religious/spiritual lives following a
NICU experience.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Spirituality, Religious/Spiritual Coping, Co-Parenting, Mental Health, Relationship Satisfaction

Kaynakça

• Ano, G. G., & Vasconcelles, E. B. (2005). Religious coping and psychological adjustment to stress: A meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(4), 461-480. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20049
• Brelsford, G. M., & Doheny, K. K. (2022). Parents’ spiritual struggles and stress: Associations with mental health and cognitive well-being following a neonatal intensive care unit experience. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 14(1), 119-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000381
• Brelsford, G. M., &, Doheny, K. K. (2016). Religious and spiritual journeys: Brief reflections from mothers and fathers in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Pastoral Psychology, 65(1), 79-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-015-0673-1
• Brelsford, G. M., Doheny, K. K., & Nestler, L. M. (2019). Parents’ post-traumatic growth and spirituality post neonatal intensive care unit discharge. Journal of Psychology and Theology. Advance online publication. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/rel0000381
• Brelsford, G. M., & Mahoney, A. (2008). Spiritual disclosure between older adolescents and their mothers. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 62-70. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.22.1.62
• Brelsford, G. M., Ramirez, J., Veneman, K., & Doheny, K. K. (2016). Religious and Secular Coping and Family Relationships in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Advances in Neonatal Care: Official Journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses, 16(4), 315-322. https://doi.org/10.1097/ANC.0000000000000263
• Cardena, E., Koopman, C., Classen, C., Waelde, L. C., & Spiegel, D. (2000). Psychometric properties of the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire (SASRQ): A valid and reliable measure of acute stress. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 13(4), 719–734. https://doi:10.1023/a:1007822603186
• Eaton, W. W., Smith, C., Ybarra, M., Muntaner, C., & Tien, A. (2004). Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale: Review and Revision (CESD and CESD-R). In M. E. Maruish (Ed.), The use of psychological testing for treatment planning and outcomes assessment: Instruments for adults (p. 363–377). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
• Feinberg, M. E., Brown, L. D., & Kan, M. L. (2012). A multi-domain self-report measure of coparenting. Parenting, Science and Practice, 12(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295192. 2012.638870
• Franck, L. S., & O’Brien, K. (2019). The evolution of family-centered care: From supporting parent-delivered interventions to a model of family integrated care. Birth defects research, 111(15), 1044–1059. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdr2.1521
• Graham, J. M., Diebels, K. J., & Barnow, Z. B. (2011). The reliability of relationship satisfaction: A reliability generalization meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(1), 39-48. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022441
• Greene, M. M., Rossman, B., Patra, K., Kratovil, A. L., Janes, J. E., & Meier, P. P. (2015). Depressive, anxious and perinatal post-traumatic distress in mothers of very low birth weight Infants in the NICU. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 36(5), 362-370. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000000174
• Harris R., Gibbs, D., Magin-Heimos, K., & Pineda, R. (2018). Maternal mental health during the neonatal period: Relationships to the occupation of parenting. Early Human Development, 120, 31-39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2018.03.009
• He, S. W., Xiong, Y. E., Zhu, L. H., Lv, B., Gao, X. R., Xiong, H., Wang, H., Shi, H. R., & Latour, J. M. (2018). Impact of family integrated care on infants’ clinical outcomes in two children’s hospitals in China: A pre-post intervention study. Italian Journal of Pediatrics, 44(1), 65. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13052-018-0506-9
• Hendrick, S. S., Dicke, A., & Hendrick, C. (1998). The Relationship Assessment Scale. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(1), 137-142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407598151009
• Luquis, R. R., Brelsford, G. M., & Rojas-Guyler, L. (2012). Religiosity, spirituality, sexual attitudes, and sexual behaviors among college students. Journal of Religion and Health, 51, 601-614. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1007/s10943-011-9527-z
• Mahoney, A. (2010). Religion in families, 1999–2009: A relational spirituality framework. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(4), 805-827. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17413737.2010.00732.x
• Mahoney, A., & Boyatzis, C. J. (2019). Parenting, religion, and spirituality. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: The practice of parenting (pp. 515–552). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429401695-18
• McIntosh, B. J., Stern, M., & Ferguson, K. S. (2004). Optimism, coping, and psychological distress: Maternal reactions to NICU hospitalization. Children’s Health Care, 33(1), 59-76. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1207/s15326888chc3301_4
• Meyer, T. J., Miller, M. L., Metzger, R. L., & Borkovec, T. D. (1990). Development and validation of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28(6), 487-495. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(90)90135-6
• Pargament, K. I., Feuille, M., & Burdzy, D. (2011). The Brief RCOPE: Current psychometric status of a short measure of religious coping. Religions, 2(1), 51-76. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel2010051
• Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. M. (2000). The many methods of religious coping: Development and initial validation of the RCOPE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56(4), 519-543. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(200004)56:4<519::aid-jclp6>3.0.co;2-1
• Seideman, R. Y., Watson, M. A., Corff, K. E., Odle, P., Haase, J., & Bowerman, J. L. (1997). Parent stress and coming in NICU and PICU. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 12(3), 169-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0882-5963(97)80074-7
• VanDam, N.T., & Earleywine, M. (2011). Validation of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale--Revised (CESD-R): Pragmatic depression assessment in the general population. Psychiatry Research, 186(1), 128-32. https://doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2010.08.018