Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-10-2026
Abstract
Paternal perinatal depression is underrecognized, and existing tools often fail to capture male-specific symptomatic expressions. Fathers experience significant psychosocial changes during the transitional period, yet clinical assessment of paternal mental health remains largely absent from routine clinical practice. This paper introduces a multi-dimensional tool called the P-APGAR. The theory-informed conceptual tool is meant to guide the assessment of fathers’ perinatal adjustment, operationalizing core elements of role-based, relational, and emotional adaptation. The model adapts the logic of the traditional newborn APGAR score to a father-centered context based on Paternal Identity, Alienation, Paternal Strain, Generativity, Adjustment, and Resilience. A theoretical synthesis approach was used to integrate findings from qualitative and quantitative literature on paternal perinatal experiences using established theories of family systems, gender role strain, and transitional resilience. This fusion of nursing theory, sociological constructs, and current research shaped the development of the domains, each meant to reflect fathers’ experiences of connection, stress, meaningful adaptation, and coping. This analysis includes a brief review of established instruments (BDI, CES-D, EPDS, GMDS, PHQ-9, PBQ, F-PHI, EGDS, MGMQ, MDRS, and PAPA). The P-APGAR framework provides a structured, clinically applicable approach to identifying vulnerable paternal psychosocial patterns not adequately detected by existing maternal-driven depression scales. This model offers a pragmatic structure based on grounded theories for clinical conversations, research development, and future measurement, while emphasizing fathers’ relational roles, purposeful actions, and comprehensive adaptive capacities.
This article was published Open Access through the CCU Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund. The article was first published in the American Journal of Men’s Health: https://doi.org/10.1177/15579883261430883
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Schmitz RE. Paternal Alienation, Paternal Strain, Generativity, Adjustment, and Resilience (P-APGAR): A Conceptual Framework for Fathers’ Perinatal Psychosocial Adjustment. American Journal of Men’s Health. 2026;20(2). doi:10.1177/15579883261430883. Available at https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/nursing-health/3/