An exploration of the mother-child relationship between climacteric mothers and their adolescent daughters

Climacteric women face multidimensional changes including physical, psychological, social changes and changesin family structure. However, there have been few studies about the related family structure changes for climacteric women. The purpose of this study was to explore the parent-child relations between climacteric women and their adolescent daughters. Data was collected by interview, using Parent-Child Relations Scale questionnaires with purposive sampling of 70 female (mothers) who were in perimenopausal or post-menopause and 70 current nursing students (daughters) who were studying at a junior nursing college. A total of 140 subjects were recruited from residents of the Chiayi-Tainan area of Taiwan. SPSS for Windows 10.0 was used. The results indicated that the most of the women had positive parent-child relationships, and demonstrated that the women's sense of attachment was quite strong. Significant differentiation was found for the dimensions “sense of attachment”, “without sense of autonomy”, “sense of indebtedness”, “sense of respect” and “instrumental valence” between perimenopausal mothers and their daughters (p <.01). In addition, the teenage girls' perception of the parent-child relationship was higher than the mothers' (p <.01). It is therefore suggested that nursing care should go beyond the scope of disease treatment and include related socio-psychological priorities, such as the parent-child relationship, in evaluation and nursing procedures, and encourage middle-aged women to include their parent-child relationships in their life planning.