母親の育児不安と子どもの健康状態との関連性について

Abstract

In order to study the relevancy between mother's anxiety about childcare and the health condition of the child, a questionnaire was administered. The subjects were 110 mothers who came to 'K' Health Center in Nara Prefecture with their children for medical examination of three-year-old children. The number of respondents to the questionnaire was 103 (93.6%). The study consisted of the following three parts: 1) Examination of consiousness concerning mother's childcare ; 2) The results of medical examinations of the three-year-old children ; 3) Examination of the state of mother's uneasiness by State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). I searched for relevancy between mother's consciousness concerning childcare and degree of uneasiness by STAI, and the child's health condition. Based on the measurement of uneasiness by STAI, two groups were established, the uneasiness group and the stability group, and classified according to replies to the inquiry about consciousness concerning childcare. As a result of factor analysis of the acquired data, I could abstract three factors : 'grip in life ; 'anxiety ; and 'denial.' Among the averages of each factor, I found definite difference between the uneasiness group and the stability group in each factor by examination of differences among the averages of each factor about mental state of anxiety and traits of anxiety. Consequently, it became clear that the percentage of mothers who have anxieties about childcare show a high rate in the uneasiness group. As a result of mental examination of three-year-old children, I also found that problems with a child's health condition were often associated with mothers in the uneasiness group. Our data indicate that mother's uneasiness originates from her child showing uneasy actions by such influence.