Caregiver social support and child toilet training in rural Odisha, India: What types of support facilitate training and how?

Abstract

Studies show positive impacts of social support on childcare practices, but there is limited research on child toilet training. Social support with toilet training may be especially important for rural Indian caregivers as this is a new childcare practice for many and mothers face an already demanding workload. The aim of this study was to examine the role of social support in toilet training using mediation and conditional process analyses. We surveyed 570 caregivers of children <5 years old living in rural Odisha, India. We found certain types of support aid toilet training through three mechanisms: directly, by improving self-efficacy, and by buffering against stress. Informational and instrumental support had a positive direct effect on toilet training while emotional support had no effect. Instrumental support also aided toilet training indirectly through bolstering a caregiver's perceived self-efficacy. These effects of instrumental support were not moderated by the caregiver's support network size. Additionally, we found perceived stress had a negative indirect effect on caregivers' toilet training efforts through diminishing self-efficacy, but this effect was buffered (i.e. moderated) by social support. These findings offer useful programmatic insights and expand the evidence-base on how social support functions to another childcare practice and cultural context.