Exploring the experiences of first time fatherhood and paternal postnatal depression: a grounded theory analysis revealing the importance of the concept of 'coping.

This longitudinal exploratory research was conducted to explore the experiences of first time fathers who self-identified through in-depth interviews as having experienced depression and/or anxiety or depressed mood in the first six months after the birth of their baby as well as their experiences with first time fatherhood more generally. The research was conducted in two distinct but interconnected stages with the results of the first method (qualitative) used to inform the second method (quantitative). Stage one involves a qualitative approach to explore in-depth the experiences of first time fathers as well as the phenomenon of paternal postnatal depression. The tenets of grounded theory analysis were used to analyse the data and identified the emergent theory of ‘coping’ comprised of all the emergent categories that provided an insight into the experiences of first time fathers in a specific context that provided a better understanding of the phenomenon from the participants’ perspective. Stage two involves a quantitative approach in the collection of the data and was conducted in four phases. Each phase contributed to the development of the Coping with New Fatherhood Questionnaire (CNFQ), a gender-specific self-report questionnaire for application in future population-based research. In the fourth phase a small sub-set of participants from the qualitative research in stage one reviewed the questionnaire to provide feedback on the format, wording and purpose of the draft questionnaire to determine face validity. The author plans to continue as part of a post-doctoral research focus to further refine and pilot the CNFQ with a large population sample and assess the psychometric properties of the instrument.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Population Health, 201