Abstract
Due to shortage of childcare facilities while high social expectations for mothering, becoming a mother is a big life challenge for most women in urban China. The understandings on Chinese postpartum women’s affective well-being and its relation with spousal support and maternal role adaptation remain limited. This study aims to investigate the affective well-being (including both positive and negative affect) of Chinese urban postpartum women and how it is associated with spousal support and maternal role adaptation. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Shanghai, China, between June and July 2019. A total of 498 urban mothers whose babies were 0 to 1 year old participated in this survey. They completed the Postpartum Social Support Questionnaire (PSSQ), the Maternal Role Adaptation Scale, and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), and reported socio-demographic information. Results showed that positive and negative affect of postpartum women were not significantly associated with each other. Positive affect had a positive correlation with spousal support and maternal role adaptation. Negative affect was negatively associated with maternal role adaptation, while not significantly associated with spousal support. Maternal role adaptation partially mediated the relationship between spousal support and positive affect of the participants, controlling for age, household income, education, birth order, and inter-generational support. The findings indicate that intervention programs towards mental health of postpartum women should focus more on positive affect cultivation; moreover, clinical services should help postpartum women to adapt to maternal role by encouraging new fathers’ or partners’ involvement in daily childcare-giving.
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Funding
This study was supported by Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (Project No. 18YJC840016), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 72174118), and Shanghai Social Science Innovation Research Base of “Research on Transitional Sociology with Chinese Characteristics.”
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Conceptualization: Shanshan He; methodology: Fan Yang and Huimin Zhang; formal analysis and investigation: Shanshan He and Fan Yang; writing–original draft preparation: Fan Yang, Shanshan He, and Shumiao Zhang; writing–review and editing: Huimin Zhang and Shumiao Zhang; funding acquisition: Shanshan He and Fan Yang.
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Approval was obtained from the University Committee on Human Research Protection of East China Normal University (authorization code No. HR204-2019). The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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He, S., Yang, F., Zhang, H. et al. Affective well-being of Chinese urban postpartum women: predictive effect of spousal support and maternal role adaptation. Arch Womens Ment Health 25, 781–788 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-022-01240-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-022-01240-w