Objectives:

This study aimed to determine care self-efficacy and related factors in mothers with 1-3 year old children hospitalized in a training and research hospital.

Materials and Methods:

In this cross-sectional study, 174 mothers of normally developing children aged 1-3 years who received inpatient treatment between July and December 2022 were included. The “Self-Efficacy Scale in Parenting Skills”, developed by Bob and Emde and validated and reliable in Turkish by was used to measure the parental self-efficacy of mothers, and the “Personal Information Form” was used to determine sociodemographic characteristics. The forms were filled out by face-to-face interview. Analyzes were made using Student’s t-test, ANOVA and linear regression analysis with the SPSS 26 program.

Results:

The average self-efficacy score of the mothers is 206.7±19.3. It was observed that the mother’s graduation from high school or above increased the scale score by 9.87 points compared to being below high school (p=0.005). While increasing the number of people in the family increased the scale score by 3.55 points (p=0.013), the fact that the mother was not working increased it by 6.7 points compared to the working status (p=0.045).

Conclusion:

Parental self-efficacy was found to be related to mothers’ educational status, employment status and the number of people in the family. In order to improve public health, it is important to raise the education level of mothers, educate them on child development and care, and support working mothers.

Keywords: Parental self-efficacy, child development, social support, maternal education