Relationship between social support with self-efficacy and blues maternity amonug nulliparous mothers with premature infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

The birth of a premature baby is a potential stressful event for the mother, and mothers are eager to get information about their baby and their recovery during admission in the neonatal intensive care unit. Nurses should be aware of the effects of social support, and in particular family support on mental health and the confidence of mothers who first delivered a birth. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate "The relationship between social support with self-efficacy and blues maternity among nulliparous mothers with premature infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit".
This is a descriptive correlational research. The research population consisted of primiparous mothers with premature infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit in three educational hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences including Ali Asghar, Rasoul and Akbarabadi hospitals. 202 mothers were selected as sample using convenient sampling method and proportional sampling in each center. After receiving informed consent, the demographic information form was filled by the mother and then the Stein’s maternal sadness questionnaire was filled out for five consecutive days from days Three to seven after delivery and finally, the Tarrkan social protection questionnaire and Barnes self-efficacy questionnaire were completed on seventh day. Finally, the data were analyzed in the SPSS version 21 software.
Findings represent the correlation between social support variables, self-efficacy maternal and sadness. According to the findings of these two tables, the correlation between social support and self-efficacy is positive and significant (p=0.001, r = 0.231). The correlation between self-efficacy and maternal sadness is not significant (p=0.05, r = -0.106). The correlation between social support and maternal sadness is very weak and negative, in other words, with the strengthening of social support, maternal sadness is reduced, but this relationship is not significant (p=0.05, r = -0.043).
The results of the study showed that social support of the family and the health care team improved maternal self-efficacy. Having high self-efficacy for primiparous mothers is very important because mothers will have a higher parental ability at the time of delivery and at an early stage, then they will have the ability to increase parental skills and improve their mental health until the first year after the birth of the baby. Therefore, midwives and nurses who are directly involved with pregnant mothers should identify mothers at risk, mother depression risk factors and maternal sadness and prevent them from being irreparable by strengthening their self-efficacy and making them available for supporting them.