Abstract
BackgroundBecoming parents for the first time is challenging. Mothers need both social and professional support to handle these challenges. Professionals’ attitudes affect quality of care and support. So to improve professional support, an intervention consisting of a process-oriented training was performed. Due to the positive results of the intervention there is a need to illuminate the methodological approach further. The overall aim was therefore to describe a methodological approach to improve and evaluate health care professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support in order to improve quality of care in childbearing.MethodsThis study was a longitudinal randomized control intervention study, in which groups of mothers received care in childbearing from midwives and child health nurses. These health professionals had gone through a process-oriented training, or not. In order to improve attitudes of health professionals the training was based on evidence, practical skills and reflective processes (both private and professional experiences) in relation to breastfeeding and parental support. Included in the longitudinal study were health professionals from five intervention municipalities n = 36 and health professionals from five control municipalities n = 45. All mothers who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were consecutively identified from the hospital register and asked to participate in the study. Mothers who accepted to participate were included in the interventions group (n = 206) or control groups (n = 162, n = 172 respectively) based on which municipality they belonged to.ResultsThe results of the process-oriented training improved the professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support. These improved attitudes in health professionals increased intervention-group mother’s satisfaction with professional and social support. Intervention-group mother’s relation to and feelings for their baby as well as breastfeeding was also improved.ConclusionThese results stress the importance of professionals’ attitude in quality of care during childbearing, as well as pointing to the possibility to improve professionals’ attitudes with a process-oriented training.Trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR), trial registration: ACTRN12611000354987.
Highlights
Becoming parents for the first time is challenging
An intervention with a process-oriented training including evidence based lectures and reflection was performed to change health professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support. This intervention resulted in health professionals attitudes becoming more facilitating and less regulating [22], mothers experienced improved professional support, improved selfreported relation to and feelings for the baby and breastfeeding [15, 17, 23,24,25,26,27,28]
The participating first-time mothers were given written and oral information about the study, as well as information explaining that their participation was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any time without having to provide a reason and without their care being affected. Effects of this intervention has been published in scientific journal and a book chapter (Table 3)
Summary
Becoming parents for the first time is challenging. Mothers need both social and professional support to handle these challenges. An intervention with a process-oriented training including evidence based lectures and reflection was performed to change health professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support This intervention resulted in health professionals attitudes becoming more facilitating and less regulating [22], mothers experienced improved professional support, improved selfreported relation to and feelings for the baby and breastfeeding [15, 17, 23,24,25,26,27,28]. Due to these positive results there is a need to illuminate the methodological approach further. The overall aim is to describe a methodological approach to improve and evaluate health care professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support in order to improve quality of care in childbearing
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