Journal of North Khorasan

Background & objective: The maternal initial assessment of infant's temperament is one of the most important associated factors with mother-child interactions and maternal's adjustment with parental role. Maternal's psychological condition is one of the possible factors affecting her perception of infant's temperament. The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between depression, worry, and perceived social support with basic understanding from infant's temperament.

Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed on 128 primiparous women who were referred to Mashhad health centers within five months in 2014-2015. Data were collected based on Edinburgh Depression, Cambridge Parental Worry, Bate's Infant Characteristic, and perceived social support questionnaires which were completed at the first two months after birth. Data were analyzed using the T-test, One Way ANOVA, correlation, and regression tests.

Results: The mean score of perceived infant temperament was 51.56±10.54. The relationship between maternal's worry ((p=0.017) and depression (p=0.036) with perceived infant temperament were significant. There wasn’t any significant correlation between perceived social support and infant temperament (p>0.05). After entering these variables in the regression model, just parental’s worry was able to predict 0.093% of the infant's temperament variance.

Conclusion: According to this finding, there were significant correlation between worry, and depression, and maternal's perception of infant's temperament. This correlation probably indicates that the mental disorders in mother can affect the future outcomes of mother and infant. Further research is recommended to identify the other factors affecting maternal's perception of infant temperament