A Qualitative Study of Parental Help Seeking

Abstract

Despite the concept of help seeking behaviour having a long and complex theoretical history there remains limited empirical evidence regarding parental help seeking with a young baby. Prior research has highlighted the complex range of challenges parents face when attempting to seek help from a health professional. Similarly, there is a large body of literature focusing on the needs, struggles and strengths of new parents. However, the relationship between these studies and help seeking behaviour models remains unclear. Infants under one year old are particularly vulnerable to adverse events and these events can have long lasting impacts which creates disparities in health and contribute to poor health and social outcomes. Though a small study, the present research aimed to add to the limited body of academic and practice knowledge of parental help seeking. Through employing a narrative approach, ten interviews were conducted with parents whose youngest child was between four weeks and six months old. Narrative thematic analysis was used to describe the experiences of parents and detail how these experiences impacted parents’ lives. These interviews provided insight into the complex nature of parental help seeking which include the need to negotiate, assess and form strategies in order to overcome barriers to health care. Often parents are faced with multiple barriers to accessing help and these factors tend to influence their help seeking at various stages of the pathway. Personal and social factors such as perceptions of professional availability or knowledge and values of one’s social network tend to have greater influence on the eventual behaviours and interactions parents initiate with health professionals. For this reason, health professionals have a role in addressing barriers to health care. Health care practice models that encourage building relationships between health professionals and new parents will in turn promote parental help seeking and encourage early access to health care for young babies. Encouraging parental help seeking and early access to health care is likely to promote future positive health for children and their families.