Page 48 - Zero for nine: Reducing alcohol use during pregnancy via health counselling and Internet-based computer-tailored feedback

Chapter 2
Altogether, the present study demonstrates that prenatal alcohol use is associated with various constructs of partner influence (norm, modeling and support), and it also demonstrates that the strength of the association is dependent upon how the pregnant woman perceives her partner’s influence, and what the partner reports regarding his influence. Future research is thus recommended to carefully define which construct of partner influence is being studied and clearly differentiates between the perception of the pregnant woman and the report of the partner.
In the present research, we examined how a pregnant woman’s perception related to her partner’s report of his influence. We found a relatively strong relationship between perceived and reported partner norm. Apparently, pregnant women are relatively accurate about how much importance their partner attaches to their abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy. The strong relationship between perceived and reported partner modeling indicates strong agreement among couples regarding alcohol use of the partner during the woman’s pregnancy. However, we found only a weak relationship between perceived and reported social support. In related research on social support, McNamara and colleagues (2006) explain the discrepancy in their study between perceived and reported social support as representative of a disconnnect between what pregnant women need and what partners think they are providing in terms of support. Altogether, our results further corroborate studies that rely on the perception of the pregnant woman with regard to her partner’s norm or modeling. However, caution should be exercised with regard to perceived partner support.
In addition to partner influence, this study investigated other cognitive factors related to prenatal alcohol use. Previous research supports our findings from the multivariate analyses that pregnant women who used alcohol had a higher education (Perham-Hester & Gessner, 1997), used more alcohol before pregnancy (Chang, et al., 2007), perceived a lower risk of prenatal alcohol use (Testa & Reifman, 1996) and had a more positive attitude toward prenatal alcohol use (Peadon, et al., 2011) when compared to pregnant women who abstained from alcohol. We could not confirm that pregnant women who used alcohol more often
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