Men's health status during pregnancy and early fatherhood

The findings in this study of 147 men agreed with earlier research that health status declines over the first 8 months of fatherhood. The study extends previous work in that causes of this decline were tested. Empirical respecified models predicting health perception during pregnancy, early postpartum 1, 4, and 8 months were able to predict from 20 to 60% of the variance. These models were substantively more powerful than the hypothesized theoretical model that was tested, which explained from 12 to 38% of the variance. At all time periods there was a link between negative life events and a direct or indirect predictor of health perception. Other variables that consistently entered the models with either direct or indirect links were self-esteem, mastery, and either depression or anxiety. The empirical respecified models showed moderate to strong predictive power and provide a base for future model testing and subsequent intervention studies.