Effect of structured teaching program on the knowledge and opinion among Indian nursing students regarding breastfeeding

Abstract

Background: Breastfeeding is a basic human activity, vital to the infant and maternal health and of great economic value to the households and societies. Despite this, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in children below six months, in India continues to be suboptimal. This contributes to the high burden of infant mortality in our country. Nurses play a very important role in the maternity ward by giving the right advice and support for initiation and maintenance of lactation in the post-natal mothers. There is paucity of research assessing the knowledge of nursing students regarding breastfeeding and also to study the effect of a structured teaching program on their knowledge.Methods: A self-administered pre-test questionnaire regarding breastfeeding was given to a single sample of nursing students and then a structured teaching program was administered to them. The improvement in their knowledge was recorded by a post-test self-administered questionnaire. The data was statistically analyzed.Results: A total of eighty students were enrolled in the study. The overall knowledge and opinion of nursing students regarding breastfeeding were good. However, two-third of the students lacked knowledge on exclusiveness of breastfeeding. Almost half of the students did not know about the true contraindications to breastfeeding. Only twenty-one percent students knew about the correct technique of breastfeeding. The knowledge improved significantly after the structured teaching program (p value: 0.056). Conclusions: Implementation of structured teaching program significantly improved the knowledge of nursing students in all domains of breast feeding knowledge.