HealthyDads.ca: What Do Men Want in a Website Designed to Promote Emotional Wellness and Healthy Behaviors During the Transition to Parenthood?

Abstract

BackgroundUp to 18% of men experience depression and/or anxiety during the transition to parenthood. Interventions designed specifically to promote the mental health of men during the transition to parenthood are scarce. Internet-delivered interventions may be acceptable and far-reaching in enhancing mental health, parenting knowledge, and healthy behaviors in expectant or new fathers.ObjectiveTo guide the development of Healthydads.ca, a website designed to enhance mental health and healthy behaviors in expectant fathers, a needs assessment was conducted to identify fathers’ perspectives of barriers to seeking help for emotional wellness, informational needs, and factors affecting the decision to visit such a website.MethodsOne hundred and seventy-four men whose partners were expecting, or had recently given birth, in 3 Canadian provinces (Quebec, Ontario, and Alberta) completed a Web-based survey inquiring about information needs related to psychosocial aspects of the transition to parenthood, lifestyle behaviors, parenting, and factors associated with the decision to visit a father-focused website.ResultsMost men (155/174, 89.1%) reported accessing the Internet to obtain information on pregnancy and spent an average of 6.2 hours online per month. Seeking information about parenting on the Internet was reported by 67.2% (117/174) of men, with a mean of 4.4 hours per month of online searching. Top barriers to seeking help to improve emotional wellness during the perinatal period were: no time to seek help/assistance (130/174, 74.7%), lack of resources available in the health care system (126/174, 72.4%), financial costs associated with services (118/174, 67.8%), and feeling that one should be able to do it alone (113/174, 64.9%). Information needs that were rated highly included: parenting/infant care (52.9-81.6%), supporting (121/174, 69.5%) and improving (124/174, 71.3%) relationship with their partner, work-family balance (120/174, 69.0%), improving sleep (100/174, 57.5%), and managing stress (98/174, 56.3%). Perceiving the website as personally relevant (151/174, 86.8%), credible (141/174, 81.0%), effective (140/145, 80.5%), and having an easy navigation structure (141/174, 81.0%) were identified as important factors related to a first website visit. Providing useful (134/174, 77.0%) and easy to understand (158/174, 90.8%) information, which was also free of charge (156/174, 89.7%), were considered important for deciding to prolong a website visit. Providing the possibility to post questions to a health professional (133/174, 76.4%), adding new content regularly (119/174, 68.4%), and personal motivation (111/174, 63.8%) were factors identified that would encourage a revisit.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate that there is substantial interest among expectant and new fathers for using Internet-delivered strategies to prepare for the transition to parenthood and support their mental health. Specific user and website features were identified to optimize the use of father-focused websites.

Engaging Men in Prenatal Health via eHealth: Findings From a National Survey (Preprint)

“…These interventions have been beneficial in promoting prenatal visits to healthcare providers, reducing mother-to-child transmission of diseases, and increasing breastfeeding practices [4,7,8]. Despite the success of these interventions, they have typically left male partners outside of a defined role in prenatal healthcare [9][10][11][12]. Even though international research indicates that including men in these initiatives can improve outcomes, pregnancy continues to be a domain where men feel "invisible" and "sidelined" -prompting calls for interventions that educate and engage men on prenatal health topics [5,9,10].…”

“…These include having to work, having no time, having an unclear role, cultural norms, and the expense of such programs [10,11,13]. Given these commonly-cited obstacles, the potential of using electronic health (eHealth) to educate men and motivate them to be more involved in prenatal health is encouraging [11,13].…”

“…Given these commonly-cited obstacles, the potential of using electronic health (eHealth) to educate men and motivate them to be more involved in prenatal health is encouraging [11,13]. eHealth has the ability to reach difficult-to-reach audiences, such as men, and to target information that may resonate better than existing programs designed predominantly for women.…”

“…Despite the success of these interventions, they have typically left male partners outside of a defined role in prenatal healthcare [9][10][11][12]. Even though international research indicates that including men in these initiatives can improve outcomes, pregnancy continues to be a domain where men feel "invisible" and "sidelined" -prompting calls for interventions that educate and engage men on prenatal health topics [5,9,10].In addition to feeling generally unwelcome in the arena of prenatal health, research has identified several perceived barriers to men being involved in pregnancy-related health issues.These include having to work, having no time, having an unclear role, cultural norms, and the expense of such programs [10,11,13]. Given these commonly-cited obstacles, the potential of using electronic health (eHealth) to educate men and motivate them to be more involved in 2 Engaging Men in Prenatal Health via eHealth: Findings from a National Survey prenatal health is encouraging [11,13].…”

“…Given these commonly-cited obstacles, the potential of using electronic health (eHealth) to educate men and motivate them to be more involved in 2 Engaging Men in Prenatal Health via eHealth: Findings from a National Survey prenatal health is encouraging [11,13]. eHealth has the ability to reach difficult-to-reach audiences, such as men, and to target information that may resonate better than existing programs designed predominantly for women.The purpose of this research was to confirm promising pilot results on the perceived role of men in prenatal health and the potential of eHealth to reach them with information to increase their involvement in prenatal health (e.g., attending prenatal visits to healthcare providers) [11,13]. This national survey stands to contribute to the body of research on how to encourage men to be positively involved in pregnancy to promote better health outcomes in the U.S.…”