HELP-SEEKING PATTERNS AMONG PARENTS WITH A NEWBORN CHILD

In the child health promotion program in Sweden, the public health nur se is responsible for the majority of the work. The purpose of this st udy was to test the following hypotheses: (1) there are differences in CHP program utilization between mothers in different social positions ; (2) there are differences in CHP program utilization between Swedish and foreign-born mothers; (3) there are differences in the way mother s in different social positions value formal and informal social suppo rt as a means for solving health problems; and (4) there are differenc es in the way Swedish and foreign-born mothers value formal and inform al social support as a means to solve health problems. A random sample was drawn of 10% of all children born in a particular month. A nation al postal questionnaire was sent to 850 mothers with children about fo ur to five months old. The response rate was 80%. The CHP program was utilized by 99.6% of the families. When given scenarios describing var ious problem situations, the mothers stated that they mostly would tur n to the public health nurse irrespective of the type of problem. Ther e was no support in this study for the first two hypotheses that there are differences in CHP program utilization between mothers in differe nt social positions and between Swedish and foreign-born mothers. Ther e was support in this study for the two last hypotheses that there are differences in the way mothers in different social positions and the Swedish and foreign-born mothers value nurses, other health care servi ces, relatives/friends, and literature/mass media as a means to solve health problems.