title: [Effects of a Hospital Based Follow-Up Program for Mothers with Very Low Birth Weight Infants].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper reports the results of a hospital centered follow-up program on parenting stress, parenting efficacy and coping for mothers with very low birth weight (VLBW) infants.
  
  
  METHODS
  The follow-up program consisted of home visiting by an expert group and self-help program for 1 year. A non-equivalent control group pre-post quasi-experimental design was used. Participants were 70 mothers with low birth weight infants and were assigned to one of two groups, an experimental groups (n=28), which received the family support program; and a control group (n=27), which received the usual discharge education. Data were analyzed using χ²-test, t-test, and ANCOVA with IBM SPSS statistics 20.0.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mothers' parenting stress (F=5.66, p=.004) was significantly decreased in the experimental group. There were also significant increases in parenting efficacy (F=13.05, p<.001) and coping (F=8.91, p=.002) in the experimental group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study findings suggest that a follow-up program for mothers with VLBW infants is an effective intervention to decrease mothers' parenting stress and to enhance parenting efficacy and coping.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, KonKuk University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Min Hee
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, KonKuk University Glocal Campus, Chungju, Korea. esji@kku.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Eun Sun
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Ji
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006761:Hospitals; D006792:House Calls; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D019102:Infant, Very Low Birth Weight; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D016487:Parenting; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012657:Self-Help Groups; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Coping behavior; Follow-up studies; Parenting; Very low birth weight infants