title: Is Rubin's "taking-in" and "taking-hold" a useful paradigm?
abstract: Rubin's "taking-in" and "taking-hold" model has been a dominant paradigm for postpartum nursing. To determine whether "taking-in" and "taking-hold" apply to contemporary hospitalized postpartum women, I conducted a repeated measures survey of 95 women with uncomplicated postpartum courses after vaginal births during their hospital stay. "Taking-in" and "taking-hold" were measured with the Martell Postpartum Questionnaire-Revised (MPQ-R), a paper-and-pencil instrument. An expert panel established the content validity of the MPQ-R in this study. Cronbach's alpha for the two subscales ranged from .40 to .60, a result of skewed distribution of items or lack of variability in scores. The participants were neither "taking-in" nor "taking-hold." The distribution of the participants' responses was similar to each others' and indicated that their postpartum experiences included some aspects of both "taking-in" and "taking-hold." Despite the limitations of the MPQ-R and the research methods, the findings suggest that Rubin's theory has limited usefulness for postpartum nursing of contemporary women.
authors.forename: L K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Martell
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016389:Maternal-Child Nursing; D016294:Models, Nursing; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D049590:Postpartum Period / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires