Predicting factors of dependent care behaviors among mothers of toddlers with congenital heart disease

Abstract

The alteration of the hemodynamic pattern caused by congenital heart disease (CHD) can make the affected children be at risk of morbidity and mortality. Care of mothers is particularly important for toddlers with un-repaired CHD, as the toddlers rely on their mothers for taking medication, feeding and monitoring of complications. With guidance from the Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory, this study aimed to describe the relationships between dependent care behaviors among mothers of toddlers with CHD and parenting stress, perceived social support, perceived self-efficacy, CHD knowledge, educational background and family income. Also, the abilities of those study variables in predicting dependent care behaviors of the mothers were identified. A total of 95 participants were enrolled into the study. When the effects of other variables were controlled, the results showed that perceived self-efficacy and family income were positively correlated with maternal dependent care behaviors (r = .62, p < .01; r = .21, p < .05, respectively). Importantly, perceived self-efficacy was the only predictor accounting for 43.80 % of the variance in the mothers' dependent care behaviors. Thus, building self-efficacy is likely to be a reasonable starting point for interventions aiming to enhance dependent care behaviors in mothers of toddlers with CHD.