Background: To foster growth and development to toddlers, it includes age-appropriate self-care and provision of age-appropriate toys and activities from primary caregivers such as parents or family members. The mothers as primary caregivers of a toddler child in the Philippines, her key roles never stop, instead, it only evolves and enriches. Universal health care includes a comprehensive range of services, from health promotion and prevention throughout the childhood period, including the first 3 years of life. The purpose of this study is to determine the various home-based and community-based care activities performed by the mothers to children ages 12 to 36 months old.
Methods: To identify essential toddler care activities performed by mothers, concept synthesis and face-to-face interviews were done for the first time and multigravida mothers to determine their assumed roles. From the results of these interviews, a tool was developed identifying childcare activities rendered by mothers as perceived by the mothers as needed or essential and considered with highest priorities. An instrument, Mother’s Assumed Toddler Care Role Instrument (MATCaRI), was developed to establish the components of basic care to essential toddler care activities.
Results: To examine the major elements and define the construct of essential toddler care, a content validation index was performed, resulting in 0.87 (P=0.05), which included 12 components, and reliability testing resulted in Cronbach α=0.82 with 25 items surveyed on adolescent and multigravida mothers in the provinces of Cavite and Occidental Mindoro, Philippines.
Conclusions: Mothers’ key roles in toddler care enrich and are evolving, including optimal child health activities and services, such as home care activities, provision of safety, preventive or early intervention services for developmental and behavioral problems, acute and chronic care, coordination and follow-up for developmental problems provided by health professionals, family, and community for children ages 12 to 36 months. These findings can support the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommendation to use a primary health care (PHC) approach grounding on what areas of toddler care mothers can be capacitated for the improvement of health services they need, where and when they need them.
