Social support and psychological functioning among high-risk mothers: The impact of the baby love maternal outreach worker program

This study compared two groups of high-risk Medicaid-eligible mothers, 221 who participated in a maternal home visitation program and 198 who did not, to determine whether program participation was associated with improvement s in the mothers' psychological functioning 1 year after delivery, and whet her these improvements were associated with the type and intensity of suppo rt provided by home visitors. The results suggest that, compared to nonpart icipants, participants provided with more intensive home visitor support ha d significantly higher self-esteem (p = 0.039) and were less depressed (p = 0.015). Participants with less intensive home visitor support, however, di d not differ significantly from nonparticipants in their self-esteem or dep ression levels. No significant differences were observed in the perceived s tress levels of participants as compared with nonparticipants, regardless o f the intensity of home visitor support. Mothers who had support from the b aby's father, however, had significantly lower perceived stress levels than mothers with no support from the baby's father (p = 0.046). Moreover, the type of support provided by home visitors (emotional, instrumental, informa tional) did not appear to be related to the mothers' psychological function ing. This study suggests that the intensity of support is an important comp onent of maternal home visitation programs that aim to improve women's psyc hological functioning.