Postnatal effects in fatherhood: A comparison of levels of perceived stress in Swedish and French new fathers.

Abstract: In modern society, the role of fathers in parenthood tends to be as considered as the role of mothers. Becoming parent can lead to some positive effects, but also to some negative ones, which may have serious consequences on both parents and on the child. The purpose of the present work was to investigate whether a difference of a specific postpartum effect with regard to levels of perceived stress could be noticed in Swedish and French men who just became fathers for the first time. In this study, we pointed out the stress in daily life and the stress related to the role as a parent. All participants (nSwedish = 20; nFrench = 31) were men who became fathers for the first time a year or less before the measurement of stress. A questionnaire was submitted online and the data were analyzed using t-tests in order to measure the differences between French and Swedish regarding stress and ANCOVAs in order to measure if age and duration of the relationship have an impact on stress level. The results showed that Swedish fathers have a significantly higher perceived stress level than French fathers. However, there is no effect of age and duration of the relationship on the results. Moreover, no differences were found with respect to fathers’ parenting stress level.