Fathers’ Feelings and Experience Related to their Wife/Partner’s Delivery in Northern Greece

OBJECTIVES: The study aims at exploring the feelings and the experience of fathers about their wife/partner’s delivery. BACKGROUND: During the last decades birth attendance by fathers is a common phenomenon across many countries. Fathers’ birth attendance may evoke both positive and negative feelings. METHODOLOGY: The study was conducted in a city of Northern Greece. The sample consisted of 417 fathers whose wife/partner had given birth during the previous one week to one year. Data were collected using the Kuopio Instrument for Fathers (KIF). RESULTS: Father’s feelings about their wife or partner were very positive as nearly all (82.1%) of the participants were proud to become fathers and agree that they felt love and were grateful to their wife/partner. However, half of the fathers felt anxious and nervous. 40.7% quite agree that the staff was very professional, that they trusted the staff (45%) and that they were grateful to the staff (38.8%). There is correlation between the “feelings related to the wife/partner” and education (r=0.156, p=0.0047), “being afraid during the preparatory visit at the obstetric hospital” (r=-0.238, p=0.009), and “anxiety during the preparatory visit” (r=0.295 p=0.005). The subscale “feelings related to the environment and staff” correlates with “usefulness of preparatory visit” (r=-0.223, p=0.004) and the subscale of “experiences related to delivery” correlates with “usefulness of preparatory visit” (r=-0.357, p=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the findings of previous studies, which indicated that birth attendance by fathers has evoked positive feelings about their wife/partner, the delivery, the staff and the hospital environment.