Abstract

The purpose of the study was to identify what impact, if any, maternal perception and anxiety had on an infant at the time of feeding. The framework for testing the relationship was Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal theory of psychiatry, as it related specifically to mother-infant tenderness. For the study, tenderness was restricted to a reciprocal process in which the infant had a physiochemical need for milk and the mother a complimentary need to satisfy the infant. Of importance to Sullivan was the fact that an infant had to depend on the intervention of others for survival and therefore manifested a need for milk recurrently. Thus, to ensure satisfaction of the physiochemical need, the infant and mother had to cooperate with one another. Maternal anxiety, however, according to Sullivan's premise, could disrupt the mother-infant cooperation by inhibiting maternal perception of infant needs, as well as by inducing anxiety in the infant.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 8311147; ProQuest document ID: 303180676. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Deidre Marion Blank, PHD, MSN, BSN, FAAN, RN

Sigma Membership

Xi

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Other

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Mother-Child Relationship, Maternal Anxiety, Infant Care

Advisor

Carol J. Dashiff

Degree

Doctoral-Other

Degree Grantor

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Degree Year

1982

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2019-03-01

Full Text of Presentation

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