Helping Fathers in the Perinatal Period: Understanding Paternal Mental Health Issues and Relevant Practices for Social Workers

Background and Purpose

Significant research has examined fathers’ mental health from the perspectives of child development and family cohesion and improving father involvement. This research has drawn strong associations between paternal mental health struggles and negative child outcomes throughout their developmental lifespan. However, that literature has left a concerning gap: comparatively little is known about fathers’ perinatal experiences and how these experiences impact their psychosocial function. Scholars have described paternal mental health as a “neglected” topic noting the “paucity of research” on paternal mental health interventions.

While it is clear that struggling fathers impact their families, much remains to be clarified about how to help fathers. Understanding fathers’ experiences during the perinatal and prenatal period is a crucial prerequisite to helping struggling fathers heal and thrive, and to advocate for any needed changes to systems or policies.

Methods

This study utilized a mapping review approach to explore existing empiricism and scholarship. After satisfying search inclusion and exclusion criteria, the final article set was then analyzed and thematically categorized manually. Articles were then categorized thematically into distinct research areas through an inductive, iterative, open coding process using standard thematic analysis methods. The second author verified this analysis with investigator triangulation for accuracy and agreement. By examining the codes and themes from the initial analysis, this aided in the credibility of the study as the codes were in agreement or accurately reflective of the data.

Findings

Article analysis and thematic categorization generated six themes regarding paternal mental health research. Themes amongst the existing knowledge related to developmental change, traumatic birth, paternal mental health, interventions, neurobiology, and policy will be discussed before concluding with a focus on emerging focal points for future research related to nurturing fathers during perinatal care.

Conclusions and Implications

Mapping review results confirm a significant breadth of research data on paternal mental health with clinical utility. Results also show that this data is disparate and segmented, making this mapping review uniquely cohesion-building. The lack of social work additions to the literature thus far does suggest social workers are under-informed on the topic. Perhaps more importantly, this review also identified significant research gaps and opportunities for social workers to contribute. First, social workers have the skill, flexibility, and presence to lead culture change on elevating paternal mental health needs in clinical and policy spaces. Second, social workers have the creativity to use systems thinking and clinical acumen to fundamentally shift screening away from reactive postpartum assessment of discrete disorders to robust antenatal assessment based on a matrix of established risk and protective factors. Third, social workers can take the lead on developing much-needed paternal mental health interventions by relying on pragmatism, ability to operationalize theory with empathy for clients’ situations, and strengths-based orientation.