Hi, my name is Angela Sheather. I am a mother and a Psychologist. All three of my boys were born premature. My eldest at 34 1/2 weeks and my twins at 27 weeks. Throughout my experiences as a preterm mother, I always found it amazing how similar situations challenged and impacted parents in extraordinarily diverse ways. What was different?
Over the years I have privately researched the effects of preterm birth, searching for the answers to the many questions I have. This is where I came across the gap in the public literature around how parents cope and their level of social support. As a premmie mum, I am also interested in the question, if preterm parents, both mothers and fathers, have a higher rate of post birth mental health diagnoses compared to their term birth counterparts; and if they do, what are the diagnoses? When the opportunity came along to investigate these questions, I grabbed it.
This opportunity came through enrolling in a Masters of Clinical Psychology degree with Charles Sturt University. As part of my thesis (research), I need to get insights from parents of children born premature. I am looking for parents, both mothers and fathers, over 18 years of age, whose children are 4 years or younger and are no longer in the NICU. The survey takes approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. It needs to be completed in one sitting, as it cannot be saved to come back to later. The survey is completed anonymously to protect your confidentiality, and can be simply accessed by any computer with internet connection.
If you would like to participate in the research, please click on the link below. Your time and input will be greatly appreciated.
