The perception of self-efficacy in neonatal care in primipara mothers and determination of knowledge levels.

This research aimed to determine the perception of self-efficacy and knowledge levels of primiparous mothers oriented to the neonatal care was made by descriptive cross-sectional. Between April and May 2018, 100 volunteer primiparous mothers who agreed to participate in the study were included in the study. The general self-efficacy scale and the information form prepared by the researcher were used to obtain the data. Data analysis have been performed by using IBM SPSS Statistics 17.0 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA) package program and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant for the results. %94 of the mothers participated in the study are 18-35 age range, %79 are housewives and %36 are middle school graduates. %86 of the participants were pregnant by intentionally and %59 of them gave normal spontaneous birth. %69 of the mothers stated that they received information about neonatal care, 60% stated that they received the information from the health personnel. It was found that mothers mostly lacked knowledge about neonatal vaccines, bath, body temperature measurement, thrush and jaundice, and storing breast milk. Self-efficacy was found on the total scale scores on an average 68.6, 11.7 standard deviation, 35.0 minimum, and 85.0 maximum. The planned pregnancy increased the perception of "Not to give up" significantly (B = 0.115; %95 Confidence Interval: 0.003 - 0.227 and p = 0.045); however Caesarean deliveries (B = -0,089; %95 Confidence Interval: -0,168 - -0,010 and p = 0.028) significantly decreased the perception of "Not to give up". According to the results of the study, the sociodemographic characteristics of the primitive mothers and their knowledge about neonatal care did not make a significant difference in their self-efficacy perception. Key words: Primiparous mother, neonatal care, self-efficacy perception