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“Nothing’s actually happened to me.”: the experiences of fathers who found childbirth traumatic

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, March 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (89th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
2 blogs
twitter
61 X users
facebook
12 Facebook pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
75 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
178 Mendeley
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Title
“Nothing’s actually happened to me.”: the experiences of fathers who found childbirth traumatic
Published in
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, March 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12884-017-1259-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jody Etheridge, Pauline Slade

Abstract

Given the limited research into men's experiences of being present at childbirth this study explored the experiences of fathers who found childbirth traumatic. The aim of the research was to investigate how men coped with these experiences; the impact on their lives; and their views on what may have helped to reduce distress. Participants were recruited via websites relating to birth trauma and parenthood. A consent and screening questionnaire was used to ensure that participants met the inclusion criteria of: being resident in the UK; being 16 years or older; having been present at the birth and answering yes to the question "At some point during the childbirth I experienced feelings of intense fear, helplessness or horror". Semi-structured telephone interviews were completed with 11 fathers who reported finding childbirth traumatic. Participants also completed the Impact of Event Scale as a measure of trauma symptoms. Template Analysis was used to analyse the interview data. Childbirth was experienced as "a rollercoaster of emotion" because of the speed and unexpectedness of events. Men described fears of death, mirroring their partner's distress; trying 'to keep it together' and helplessly watching a catastrophe unfold. Fathers felt themselves abandoned by staff with a lack of information. Men were subsequently distressed and preoccupied with the birth events but tended to feel that their responses were unjustified and tried to cope through avoidance. Men described the need for support but reluctance to receive it. Fathers may experience extreme distress as a result of childbirth which is exacerbated by aspects of current maternity care. Maternity services need to be aware of the potential impacts of fathers' attendance at childbirth and attend to fathers', as well as mothers', emotional responses.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 61 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 178 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Italy 1 <1%
Unknown 177 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 24 13%
Student > Bachelor 24 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 16 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 11 6%
Professor > Associate Professor 9 5%
Other 34 19%
Unknown 60 34%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 44 25%
Psychology 33 19%
Medicine and Dentistry 25 14%
Social Sciences 6 3%
Unspecified 3 2%
Other 2 1%
Unknown 65 37%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 61. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 July 2022.
All research outputs
#708,769
of 25,543,275 outputs
Outputs from BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
#119
of 4,816 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#14,634
of 321,490 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
#8
of 67 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,543,275 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,816 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 321,490 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 67 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.