Bakgrund: Förlossningen kan upplevas som en positiv livshändelse och har betydelse för framtida hälsa, välbefinnande och relation till partner. Förlossningsupplevelsen påverkas av de blivande föräldrarnas förberedelser inför förlossningen och föräldraskapet. Parrelationen är central under förlossningen där stöd från partnern är viktigt. I nuläget finns dock begränsad forskning kring hur förlossningsupplevelsen påverkas av kvinnors och partners kvalitet i parrelation samt deras tankar och känslor inför förlossningen och föräldraskapet i ett longitudinellt perspektiv, varför det finns behov av att studera detta. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka faktorer relaterade till förstföderskor och partners förlossningsupplevelse sex månader efter förlossning. Metod: Studien är en kvantitativ longitudinell kohortstudie. Datainsamlingen genomfördes via webbaserade enkäter vid tre tillfällen under graviditet och de första sex månaderna efter förlossning. Enkäterna innehöll frågor kring studiedeltagarnas bakgrund, förlossningsupplevelse (QPP), kvalitet i parrelation (QDR36) och känslor inför förlossning och föräldraskap. Analys av data har skett i SPSS där deskriptiv statistik och multipel logistisk regressionsanalys har genomförts. Resultat: Följande faktorer hade ett samband med en mer positivt skattad förlossningsupplevelse sex månader efter förlossning; Upplevelse av normal förlossning (QPP 5), förstföderska (p=0.001), partner (p=0.003); Upplevelse av kontroll vid förlossning (QPP9), förstföderska (p=0.024); Högre uppfattad kvalitet i parrelation (QDR36-index), partner (p=<0.001). Konklusion: Förlossningsupplevelsen påverkas av upplevelsen av förlossningen som normal, upplevelsen av kontroll under förlossningen samt högre uppfattad kvalitet i parrelation. / Background: Childbirth can be perceived as a positive life event and has a significance for future health, well-being, and relationship with partner. The childbirth experience is influenced by the prospective parent´s preparations for childbirth and parenthood. The couple relationship is central during childbirth where support from the partner is important. At present, however, there is limited research on how the childbirth experience is affected by the quality of couple relationship, as well as thoughts and feelings about childbirth and parenthood, in a longitudinal perspective, why there is a need to study this further. Purpose: The aim of the study is to examine factors related to first-time mothers and partners' childbirth experience six months after childbirth. Method: The study is a quantitative longitudinal cohort study. Data collection was conducted via web-based surveys on three occasions during pregnancy and the first six months after childbirth. The questionnaires contained questions about the study participants' background, childbirth experience (QPP), quality of couple relationship (QDR36) and feelings about childbirth and parenting. Data has been analyzed in SPSS where descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regression analysis have been performed. Results: Following factors were associated with a more positive childbirth experience six months after childbirth; Experience of normal childbirth (QPP 5), first-time mother (p=0.001), partner (p=0.003); Experience of control during childbirth (QPP 9), first-time mother (p=0.024); Higher perceived quality of couple relationship (QDR36 index), partner (p=<0.001). Conclusion: The childbirth experience is affected by the experience of a normal childbirth, feeling of control during childbirth and higher perceived quality of couple relationship.

Although it is understood that stigma about mental ill-health emerges in middle childhood, and that parental communications are highly influential in children’s developing attitudes, almost nothing is known about the messages parents communicate to young children about mental health problems and how these might contribute to the perpetuation of stigma. This study aimed to address this gap in the literature by exploring parents' communications to their primary-school aged children around mental health and ill-health. Semi structured interviews were carried out with ten parents of children aged 7-11. Data collection and analysis was performed according to a Grounded Theory approach; a theoretical model was developed. The model highlights factors that govern parents’ communications to children about mental health issues, and the impact of this on communication purpose and approach. Parents’ communications were governed by the extent to which parents’ representations of ‘Them’ (mental illness) and ‘Us’ (mental health) overlapped or remained distinct. Communications about mental health were deliberate, comfortable, and aimed to promote child wellbeing, whilst unconscious processes driven by taboo meant communications about mental illness were characterized by avoidance, awkwardness, and ambivalence. Factors such as parent experiences, communication context, and child characteristics, fluidly influenced parents’ overlap of ‘Them’ and ‘Us’, and hence the purpose and approach of their communications to their children. Parents’ context-dependent conceptualizations of mental health and ill-health mean children are receiving complex verbal and non-verbal messages from parents, which may contribute to children’s development of stigmatized views via conscious and unconscious processes. Interventions and policy that harness parents’ existing understandings of mental wellbeing to promote a spectrum model of mental health and ill-health may lead to more open parent-child communication, increased help-seeking, and reduced stigma.

The present study investigated parental attachment insecurity, specifically Insecure-Anxious and Avoidant attachment styles, and their relationship to children’s ADHD symptoms of hyperactivity, inattention and aggression. The study used a between­ subjects, correlational (cross­sectional) design and quantitative data was collected using reliable and valid self-report questionnaires. Data was analysed using SPSS 19.0. There were no significant differences in attachment insecurity or attachment styles between parents of ADHD and non-ADHD children. However a highly significant association was found between parental attachment insecurity and child aggression, and a moderate association with hyperactivity. There was no significant effect of attachment style, but the study was underpowered and a larger sample size may have differentiated specific effects of parental attachment style. The study used a largely non-clinical sample, with children who were low risk and significantly less impaired than the ADHD participants. A higher risk population would have potentially brought some of the trends of association between parental attachment and child symptoms to significant levels. The study concluded that parental insecure attachment, specifically Dual/Disorganised attachment style, contributes to the emotional environment that increases risk of child aggression and hyperactivity, however methodological limitations were acknowledged. Clinical implications were drawn and recommendations made for future research.

Section A provides an overview of the impact of parental mental health difficulties on the person’s family. The current health policies and clinical guidelines in relation to family-inclusive care are discussed, along with research exploring service users’ families' views and experiences of adult mental health services. Studies investigating mental health professionals’ family-inclusive care practices are critically reviewed, followed by a consideration of how psychological theories conceptualise parenthood. The paper concludes by identifying areas for future research in this field. Section B is an empirical paper. Background. Potential negative outcomes for children who grow up with a parent suffering from mental illness are well-documented, including attachment difficulties and later mental health problems. However, research to date has not investigated how therapists conceptualise their clients’ parenthood, with the aim to protect the future mental health of the clients’ children. Aims. To explore how parenthood is considered in therapies provided by psychologists in adult mental health services. Method. In-depth interviews were carried out with psychologists working in adult mental health services in the UK. Thirteen psychologists were interviewed, and the data were analysed using grounded theory. Results. A preliminary model was generated, which comprised of five categories: drivers, therapist factors, psychological theorising, client variables, and risks. The inter-relations between these categories are complex, and the degree of psychologists’ consideration of their clients’ parenthood is based on the nature of such overlaps. Conclusions. Psychologists are skilled at formulating the role of their clients’ parenthood, but do not necessarily address and support this role directly. The reasons for this are multifaceted, but any lasting change in practice is likely to require changes in services’ infrastructures and policies that support family-inclusive practices. Section C provides a critical reflection of the research project by addressing four pre-determined broad questions: the development of my own research skills in the course of the project, how the project could have been improved, how conducting this research has impacted on my own clinical work with clients, and areas for future research.

The purpose of the research was to develop and test a scale to index the concerns of first-time expectant parents. The two-phase research design included (1) an inductive concept generation phase, consistent with the status of knowledge in the field, and (2) a quantitative deductive instrument test of the concepts from phase 1. In the inductive phase, grounded theory analysis using interviews from a theoretical sample of ten expectant parents, provided data to generate a conceptual model. The three induced constructs were Support Cycling, Transition to First-Time Parenthood and Success at Parenting. In the quantitative deductive phase, 45 female and 36 male first-time expectant parents, volunteered from childbirth classes to test the Imle Transition to Parenthood Concerns (ITPC) scale, which indexed the second of the three major constructs generated in the inductive phase. Preliminary internal consistency and content validity assessments of the scale yielded an 87 item paper and pencil scale that would measure intensity of concern about each item. Separate testing for male and female subjects was supported by Hotelling's T² in MANOVA tests of the effects of sex and measured but uncontrolled testing situation variables. Reliability estimates of the ITPC scale, with seven subscales, indicated acceptable coefficient alphas for females and males of .95 and .93, respectively. The seven subscale coefficient alphas ranged from .79 to .92 for females and from .84 to .91 for males. Concurrent criterion-related validity estimates, using one criterion item per subscale, exceeded the criterion of at least .55, ranging from .58 to .83 for females and from .59 to .86 for males. The ITPC scale met preliminary tests of reliability and concurrent criterion-related validity. Since the subject test sample was representative of the middle class, educated type of person, who usually attends childbirth education classes, scale testing results cannot be generalized to other types of samples without testing. Psychometric testing indicated clinicians can use small sub-sets of items to index expectant parent concerns in a quick, easy-to-score, valid and reliable manner. Results could offer sound information to facilitate patient counseling.

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In a contemporary Europe symptomized by concurrent trends of economic and demographic transformation it is increasingly important to trace how individuals are navigate their everyday contexts when making major life course decisions.  Placed within an emerging tradition of sub-national demographic research, this study focuses on how municipal economic conditions affect entry into parenthood throughout Sweden.   Employing event-history analysis using individual and multi-level regression models on Swedish register data for the period 2000 to 2007 the study seek answers to whether growing regional economic disparities are conducive to a fault line between contexts in terms of how individuals enter parenthood.    Further it problematizes the measures traditionally used to model contextual economic conditions by introducing a measure of vulnerability as a covariate alongside traditional unemployment rates. The findings reveal that poor economic conditions, in combination with individual characteristics, distinctly affect entry into parenthood and are mostly composed of a timing-effect.

Bakgrund: Graviditet och tidigt moderskap är perioder då kvinnor aktivt söker ny kunskap. Tillgången till hälsorelaterad information är enorm men kvaliteten på innehållet varierar mellan olika källor. För att kunna göra informerade val i hälsofrågor behöver mödrar evidensbaserad information, och det är en barnmorskas ansvar att kunna guida dem till högkvalitativa källor. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att kartlägga nyblivna mödrars informationssökning samt att undersöka om det finns samband mellan informationssökning och olika sociodemografiska bakgrundsvariabler. Metod: Undersökningen baserades på delar av en pilotstudie inför ett större europeiskt projekt och data från 137 enkäter till nyblivna mödrar analyserades. Resultat: De mest använda informationskällorna bland mödrarna var barnavårdscentral och vårdsidor på Internet, således källor som tillhandahåller evidensbaserad information. Nästan lika populärt var dock att vända sig till familj och vänner och till Internetforum, där kvaliteten på informationen kan variera och ibland skapa missförstånd och oro. Slutsats: Barnmorskor bör därför hålla sig uppdaterade på det informationsflöde som finns, känna till vilka informationskällor deras patienter använder och vilken typ av information de hämtar. De bör också kunna guida sina patienter till högkvalitativ information. / Background: Pregnancy and early motherhood are periods when women are actively seeking new knowledge. The public access to health information is enormous but the quality of the content varies between different sources. To make informed health choices, mothers need evidence-based information, and midwives have a responsibility to guide them to highqualitative sources. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore new mothers’ information seeking and to investigate the relationship between information seeking and various sociodemographic background variables. Method: The study was based on parts of a pilot study prior to a wider European project, and data from 137 questionnaires to new mothers were analysed. Results: The most frequently used sources of information among the mothers were childcare centres and health sites on the Internet, thus sources that provide evidence-based information. Almost as popular was, however, to turn to family / friends and to Internet forums, where the quality of information can vary and sometimes create confusion and anxiety. Conclusion: Midwives should therefore stay updated on the predominant flow of information, know which sources of information their patients are using and what type of information they obtain. They should also be able to guide their patients to high-quality information.

Scholarship on Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe tends to center on eroticism or pastoralism or the interplay of the two in the infusion of Theocritean innocence into the Greek narrative prose tradition of heterosexual love. Although these approaches examine Longus’s careful construction of an eroticized pastoral world, they tend to overlook the reproduction and parenthood that also inform Longus’s pastoralism. This article argues that Longus’s pastoral landscapes, signaled chiefly by the locus amoenus, have a primarily reproductive rather than erotic function. These landscapes introduce parenthood and childcare as themes that, in turn, serve as metaphors for the creative process behind the novel itself. By shifting the focus to the reproductive and parental aspects of Daphnis and Chloe, I will illuminate a hybrid quality to Longus’s pastoralism that has not been fully explored but is a key aspect of his pastoral art.

The question to be considered is whether the issue of genetic origin is still present nowadays. I think so, because today, in comparison to the past, there are more children who grow up in single-parent families. In addition there is a significant number of children who are abandoned by their parents and there is also the area of assisted reproduction to be considered which cannot be ignored. These offer possibilities that the previous generations never dreamed of. It is true that nowadays incomplete families no longer mean stigmatization but the awareness of origin for each of us still remains very important. The complete family is not only formally but also an effectively functioning family consisting of the mother, the father and their children, creating the foundation of society. Even though the children have formally both parents, it is also important to know their biological parents in case of that they are not the same as the people who actually take care of them. This comes to the fore especially in connection with the issue of adoption when the bonds of a child with his biological family are replaced with those of "new" parents. In the case of foster care of a child, the real state does not usually get into a conflict with the legal state or more precisely with the formal state because the...