Association Between Parenting Styles Advocated by Midwives and Mothers’ Parenting Style

Introduction: Promoting healthy parenting practices is considered to be a part of public health midwives’ (PHMs) job in Sri Lanka. However, they do not undergo specific training to impart parenting skills to parents.
Objectives: Objectives of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the advocacy of PHMs on parenting and its correlation with the parenting styles of mothers in the Central Province of Sri Lanka.
Methodology: A cross-sectional exploratory study was conducted among 39 PHMs and 390 mothers conveniently selected by PHMs.
Results: The mean age of the PHMs was 43.6 (SD=9.64) years and the mean service years was 19.5 (SD=11.49). All the PHMs advocated authoritative behaviours, and 91% of mothers were also predominantly authoritative, however, 2.5% were authoritarian, and 1.9% were permissive. But 80.5% of mothers appear to have embraced more than 5 authoritarian attributes, while 22.9% PHMs advocated authoritarian behaviour with a positive correlation (r=0.116, p=0.96). A significant correlation between PHM’s advocacy of authoritative attributes and parents’ authoritative characteristics (r = 0.716, p = 0.024) was noted. PHMs' permissiveness in advocacy correlates with parents’ authoritarian styles (r=0.219, p=0.03). PHM’s authoritative advocacy negatively correlates with neglecting parenting behaviors (r=-0.040, p=0.57). PHM’s negligence style of advocacy correlates negatively with parental authoritative behaviors (r=-0.013, p= 0.84).
Conclusion: PHMs advocacy of authoritative parenting seems to support a healthy parenting style, while PHM supporting authoritarian, neglectful, and permissive attributes correlate with mothers’ negative parenting attributes. Training PHMs to advocate a healthy parenting style would be a beneficial community intervention.