Objectives: The purpose of the study was to clarify the effects of participation of husband’s child-care on the health-related quality of life (QOL) of wife.
Methods: In this study, 214 household which have been using 15 nursery centers in S city, C city and Y city were surveyed. The questionnaire consisted to husband's age, income, work condition, participation of child-care, wife’s age, number of children, age of youngest child, work condition, recognition of husband’s childcare support, marital satisfaction, mental health, health-related QOL. We designed the casual model to examine the relationship between husband's participation of child-care and wife’s health-related QOL. Specifically, husband's participation of child-care impact to wife’s marital satisfaction and mental health trough recognition of husband’s child-care support, and wife’s marital satisfaction impact a direct effect or through mental health indirectly on health- related QOL. Above model was examined by using structural equation modeling. We used the data from 214 household with no missing values on the variables.
Results: The fit indices were found to be CFI=0.991, RMSEA=0.054. This is statistically acceptable levels. It showed that participation of husband’s child-care had a significant influence on wife’s recognition about husband’s childcare support husband's participation of child-care is contributing to health-related QOL through wife’s recognition about husband’s childcare support, marital satisfaction and mental health indirectly.
Conclusions: These results suggests that the promotion of husband's participation of child-care is important.