PubMed1997
Mother-child health-resort treatments have for many years been a major component of rehabilitative and preventive health care for women. The rising significance of health-promotion measures on the one hand, and increased attention to women's health aspects in rehabilitation and prevention on the other, have made in-depth consideration of the issues involved in target-groups, participation in and conceptual potential of mother-child programmes necessary. In a questionnaire study of n = 103 women participating in a mother-child programme, data were collected concerning their life situation, life satisfaction, psychosocial burdens and psychovegetative complaints, the expectations and needs hoped to be met by the preventive and rehabilitative programme features, as well as the motives for participating. The findings show that the life situation of the women in our study is characterized by a high degree of stress and strain, by physical complaints and dissatisfaction with life. The women clearly state the relationships they see among their current life situation, their subjective emotional state, their health behaviours, and their subjective physical status. Programme participation, on the one hand, has to do with needing a rest and easing of tension; yet on the other hand, the responding women also express a desire to confront current life themes, to find room for reconsidering attitudes, behaviours and the potential for change. Implications for shaping women-specific rehabilitative and preventive programmes are formulated on the basis of the study findings. Future studies in the field of mother-child health resort programmes should be directed at evaluating the treatment programmes available.