Article ID: JJAM-2019-0033
Purpose
The HUG (Help-Understanding-Guidance) Your Baby program is designed to support parents with a newborn baby. This study aimed to evaluate the usability of the program through 1) questionnaires on class contents and use of learning materials, and 2) interviews on parenting experiences of those who participated in the HUG Your Baby program during pregnancy.
Participants and methods
This study is a program evaluation study that integrates findings from questionnaire data and qualitative interviews. Descriptive statistics of the questionnaire data after the program during pregnancy, 1 month postpartum, and 3 months postpartum were calculated, and differences between 1 month postpartum and 3 months postpartum were analyzed. Semi-structured interviews based on the evaluation method of the intervention study by Bowen et al. were conducted 2 to 7 months after the birth of the baby.
Results
The questionnaire survey included 82 participants who responded both at 1-month postpartum and at 3-month postpartum. In terms of the frequency of use of learning materials, use of the following materials was significantly higher in the 3 months after delivery: newborn behavior DVD (p<0.001), newborn behavior leaflet (p<0.001), breastfeeding leaflet (p<0.001), and swaddles (p=0.001). In comparisons of the comprehensibility of the learning materials, significant differences were found between the newborn behavior DVD (p=0.032) and breastfeeding leaflet (p=0.009). More than 90% of mothers answered “I would recommend” or “I would highly recommend” HUG Your Baby to other people.
With regard to demand, in the interviews, many mothers reported that they had expected parenting to be difficult; however, they considered the title “HUG Your Baby” to be positive and reassuring. They wanted to love their children without stress and to make parenting easier. With regard to practicality, in the interviews, participants described the following benefits of the program: being able to respond to the child's crying, breastfeeding and cuddling according to the sleep pattern of the newborn; being helped by parenting experiences; and being able to share learning materials with other family members.
Conclusion
The program HUG Your Baby is highly usable in terms of meeting parents' needs regarding understanding and responding to the newborns behaviors. The learning materials were useful for obtaining support from other family members, and their comprehensibility increased as they were repeatedly used.
