This secondary analysis explored how social support changed during the first six months postpartum and examined the relationships among social support, parenting competence and parenting role satisfaction. Single, low income, adolescent, new mothers (N = 34) completed measures of perceived parenting competence, parenting role satisfaction and 4 types of received social support (emotional, informational, tangible, problematic) from the entire social network at 1 week, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months postpartum. Results indicated that social support did not change over time. Emotional, informational and tangible social support were significantly correlated, concurrently and predictively, with perceived competence and satisfaction at most data collection points. Future social support intervention studies using social support as a modifiable variable with this high-risk group of African American adolescent new mothers are advocated. Healthcare professionals are encouraged to examine existing social support within these mothers’ identified family units.
展开▼
