Recruiting Perinatal Fathers to Interventions and Research: A Conceptual Model of Engagement and Integrative Review of Barriers Encountered and Strategies Used

Abstract

The perinatal period represents a unique developmental window for families and an opportunity to reach and engage fathers in research and preventive interventions. The distinctiveness of this period stems from the changes and stressors that parents experience which affect their openness to enroll in interventions (e.g., adaptive parenting, physical and mental health, relationship skills, and economic self-sufficiency) and participate in research. While long understudied, paternal research in the perinatal period has flourished in the past decade. Recent studies find that fathers struggle with the transition to parenting and report increased health and mental health problems during this time; but, compared to mothers, they are less likely to enroll in supportive services. Intervention programs and research studies have found recruiting, engaging, and retaining fathers is difficult due to factors such as men’s low knowledge of and openness to the use of available support resources as well as logistical, internalized, and program-level barriers. Aside from a few quasi-experimental studies on the impact of altering advertisement text to specifically state they are recruiting fathers, little systematic study of or conclusive evidence for the effectiveness of paternal recruitment strategies has been published. To frame future work, this manuscript first offers a conceptual model of phases of paternal engagement and the factors believed to impact father recruitment. Secondly, this paper summarizes, the predominantly anecdotal, previous publications on barriers faced and strategies found to be helpful in paternal recruitment and engagement.