Help-seeking patterns among parents with a newborn child

In the child health promotion program in Sweden, the public health nurse is responsible for the majority of the work. The purpose of this study was to test the following hypotheses: (1) there are differences in CHP program utilization between mothers in different social positions; (2) there are differences in CHP program utilization between Swedish and foreign-born mothers; (3) there are differences in the way mothers in different social positions value formal and informal social support as a means for solving health problems; and (4) there are differences in the way Swedish and foreign-born mothers value formal and informal social support as a means to solve health problems. A random sample was drawn of 10% of all children born in a particular month. A national postal questionnaire was sent to 850 mothers with children about four to five months old. The response rate was 80%. The CHP program was utilized by 99.6% of the families. When given scenarios describing various problem situations, the mothers stated that they mostly would turn to the public health nurse irrespective of the type of problem. There was no support in this study for the first two hypotheses that there are differences in CHP program utilization between mothers in different social positions and between Swedish and foreign-born mothers. There was support in this study for the two last hypotheses that there are differences in the way mothers in different social positions and the Swedish and foreign-born mothers value nurses, other health care services, relatives/friends, and literature/mass media as a means to solve health problems.