Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Jan 31, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 16, 2023
Parenthood-related anxiety among non-birthing partners using a digital health platform: demographic differences in prevalence and desire for support
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
The transition to parenthood is a period of major stressors and increased risk of anxiety, regardless of whether the parent gives birth. Though rates of perinatal anxiety are similar among women (4-25%) and men (3-25%), perinatal anxiety research on non-birthing partners remains limited.
Objective:
Objective:
To examine whether demographic characteristics among non-birthing partners were associated with self-reported parenthood-related anxiety and whether self-reported parenthood-related anxiety was associated with desiring mental health support in the perinatal period.
Methods:
Methods:
In this large cross-sectional study of non-birthing partners using a digital perinatal health platform during their partner’s pregnancy, users reported their parenthood-related anxiety through a 5-item Likert scale in response to the prompt, “On a scale of 1=None to 5=Extremely, how anxious are you feeling about parenthood?” High-parenthood-related anxiety was defined as reporting being very or extremely anxious about parenthood. During the onboarding survey, in response to the question “Which areas are you most interested in receiving support in?”, users selected as many support interests as they desired from a list of options. Outcomes were compared using descriptive statistics between those who did versus did not report high parenthood-related anxiety.
Results:
Results:
Among 2,756 non-birthing partners enrolled in the digital platform during their partner’s pregnancy, 2,505 (91.9%) reported some amount of parenthood-related anxiety, and 437 (15.9%) had high parenthood-related anxiety. High parenthood-related anxiety was more common among non-white non-birthing partners or those with annual incomes <$50,000. In general, non-birthing partners were interested in receiving digital support during their partner’s pregnancy: the most requested support interests were infant care and understanding their partner’s emotional experience during pregnancy. Those with high parenthood-related anxiety were more likely to desire digital support from all support interests compared to those without high parenthood anxiety Of those with high parenthood-related anxiety, 226 (51.7%) desired digital education about their emotional health.
Conclusions:
Conclusions:
These findings demonstrate not only the need for perinatal anxiety-related support for all non-birthing partners, but that most non-birthing partners with high parenthood-related anxiety desire to receive support and that digital platforms may be an acceptable way to provide this support, particularly for a digitally savvy population. Clinical Trial: n/a
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
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