THE EFFECTS OF THE MOTHER HOME-VISIT EDUCATION PROGRAM ON MOTHERS’ ATTITUDES AND EMPATHY LEVELS

Abstract

This research has been performed to examine the effects of the “Mother Home-Visit Education Program on the mother’s attitudes and empathy levels of the mothers who have 2-4 years-old children in middle socio-economic levels. The study group has been composed of 110 middle socio-economic level mothers divided into the equal number of experimental (55) and control group (55). The experiment design is based on the pre-test and post-test. Mothers have received 10-weeks the “Mother Home-Visit Education Program.” The experimental intervetion aims to measure whether the “Mother Home-Visit Education Program” has an effect on the mothers’ positive and negative behaviors by decreasing and increasing them and a change on the mothers’ empathy levels. Findings obtained with the “General Knowledge Form” and the “ Hammel Mothers Attitudes Scale” and the “Empathic Tendency Scale” which were analyzed by the t-Test. At the end of the research, there was no meaningful differences in the control group mothers. However, the experimental group mothers have exhibited less authoritative, less excessive protective, and less inconsistent behavior attitudes and more democratic attitudes. Moreover, when we compare the control and experimental groups in terms of the empathy levels, the mothers in the experimental group have an increase level of the empathy levels and those in the control group have an decrease level of the empathy levels. As a result, the “Mother Home-Visit Education Program” has effect by increasing the mothers’ positive behaviors, decreasing the mothers’ negative behaviors, and increasing the mothers’ empathy levels