Page 561 - alligood 8th edition_Neat

542 UNIT V Middle Range Nursing Theories

MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS—cont’d
Infant Temperament personal communication, January 4, 2003). The
An easy versus a difficult temperament is related to father’s interactions help diffuse tension and facili-
whether the infant sends hard-to-read cues, leading tate maternal role attainment (Donley, 1993; Mercer,
to feelings of incompetence and frustration in the 1995).
mother (Mercer, 1986a).
Stress
Infant Health Status Stress is made up of positively and negatively per-
Infant health status is illness causing maternal-infant ceived life events and environmental variables
separation, interfering with the attachment process (Mercer, 1990).
(Mercer, 1986a).
Social Support
Infant Characteristics According to Mercer and colleagues (1986), social
Characteristics include infant temperament, appear- support is “the amount of help actually received, sat-
ance, and health status (Mercer, 1981). isfaction with that help, and the persons (network)
providing that help” (p. 341).
Infant Cues Four areas of social support are as follows:
Infant cues are infant behaviors that elicit a response 1. Emotional support: “Feeling loved, cared for,
from the mother (R. T. Mercer, personal communi- trusted, and understood” (Mercer, 1986a, p. 14)
cation, September 3, 2003). 2. Informational support: “Helping the individual
help herself by providing information that is use-
Family ful in dealing with the problem and/or situation”
Mercer and colleagues (1986) define family as “a dy- (Mercer, 1986a, p. 14)
namic system that includes subsystems—individuals 3. Physical support: A direct kind of help (Mercer,
(mother, father, fetus/infant) and dyads (mother- Hackley, & Bostrom, 1984)
father, mother-fetus/infant, and father-fetus/infant) 4. Appraisal support: “A support that tells the role
within the overall family system” (p. 339). taker how she is performing in the role; it enables
the individual to evaluate herself in relationship
Family Functioning to others’ performance in the role” (Mercer,
Family functioning is the individual’s view of the 1986a, p. 14)
activities and relationships between the family and
its subsystems and broader social units (Mercer & Mother-Father Relationship
Ferketich, 1995). The mother-father relationship is the perception of
the mate relationship that includes intended and
Father or Intimate Partner actual values, goals, and agreements between the
The father or intimate partner contributes to the pro- two (Mercer, 1986b). The maternal attachment to
cess of maternal role attainment in a way that can- the infant develops within the emotional field of the
not be duplicated by any other person (R. T. Mercer, parent’s relationship (Donley, 1993; Mercer, 1995).

She found that many factors may have a direct or child-rearing attitudes, and health. She included the
indirect influence on the maternal role, adding to infant variables of temperament, appearance, respon-
the complexity of her studies. Maternal factors in siveness, health status, and ability to give cues. Mercer
Mercer’s research included age at first birth, birth ex- (1995) and Ferketich and Mercer (1995a, 1995b,
perience, early separation from the infant, social 1995c) also noted the importance of the father’s role
stress, social support, personality traits, self-concept, and applied many of Mercer’s previous findings in