Azusa Arimoto, MHS, RN, PHN¹, Sachiyo Murashima, RN, PHN, PhD², and Atsuko Taguchi, RN, PHN, MHlthSc¹. (1) Department of Community Health Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan, 81-3-5841-3597, azusay-tky@umin.ac.jp, (2) Faculty of Medicine, dept of Community Health Nursing, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore factors related to participation in support groups and self-help groups of mothers with toddlers in Japan.

Method:Three hundred seventy-nine mothers with children aged 18 months were recruited after health examination in 5 health centers of an urban city from July to September in 2003. Data were obtained from a questionnaire which includes Child-rearing anxiety screening scale, General Health Questionnaire-12(Japanese version), and the Social support network scale.

ResultFOne hundred sixty-six mothers participated in support groups or self-help groups. Jobless mothers had more incidence of participation in the group compared to working mothers. Logistic regression analyses indicated the following factors related to participation in support groups and self-help groups of mothers: past experiences in the use of services provided by public organization, trust in the specific group, and worries about children. Mothers who need psychological help exists in the non-users of groups. However, participation of mothers groups was not related to Child-rearing anxiety, GHQ12 and Social support network. The participants evaluated that the groups provided friends and child-rearing information, and alleviates stress.

DiscussionFThe findings support the need for assessing the status of mothers' mental health at the health examination for children and promoting participation of groups. It is concluded that mothers who have problems in child-rearing or mental health status are beyond the scope of the support group.

Learning Objectives: