Current Status and Factors Influencing Parents' Coping With Infant Crying: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the current status and factors influencing parents' knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors in coping with infant crying. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Convenience sampling was used. Data were collected by the Questionnaire on Infant Parents' Coping with Crying and analyzed using SPSS software version 19.0. Independent sample t -tests, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation, and hierarchical regression analyses were used to identify infant and parental factors influencing parents' coping with infant crying and the knowledge, beliefs, and behavior dimensions. Results: The parents' knowledge, belief, and behavior in coping with infant crying were not high, especially in the belief dimension. Parents' sociodemographic factors (the availability of time for parents to accompany and care for their infant, whether having participated in related training and maternal return to work postpartum), and infants' physical factors (gestational age at birth, birth weight, whether was the first child and the infant's age in the current month) had an impact on parents' knowledge, belief, and behavior of parents' coping to infants' crying. The knowledge dimension is an influencing factor of the belief, observation behavior, and resolving behavior dimensions. Conclusions: The study points out parents' deficiencies in their beliefs, knowledge, and actions in infant crying coping, which implies the cognitive and behavioral responses of parents to infant crying. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for improving targeted support for the parents in caregiving.