PARENTAL EDUCATION AS VIEWED BY NURSES - AN INTERVIEW STUDY

This interview study of nurses in three health centres in Vaxjo munici pality in Sweden sought to find out how they perceived their work with parental education. The aim was to study the possibilities of and any obstacles to achieving the goals of good parenthood training on equal terms for all people. The results showed areas where further developm ent is needed. It appears to be difficult to achieve the goals. Parent s' needs for educational measures differed depending on social, cultur al, and gender differences. Young single mothers rarely took part in t he parents' groups. They belonged to a minority whose needs and proble ms differed from those of the majority of parents. Also immigrant pare nts rarely participated in parents' groups. According to the nurses, t his may have been due to cultural differences in child care and diffic ulties with the Swedish language. To give fathers more scope and oppor tunity to take part, it was suggested that special fathers' groups sho uld be set up. To sum up, families with specific needs should be given more individual education and guidance by nurses. This study, confine d to one geographical area, has only shed light on a few nurses' perce ptions of parental education, so the findings merely serve to indicate a trend. More general knowledge would require further research-orient ed trial projects with the focus on the parents' perspective.