Effects of an Educational Intervention on Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Knowledge and Attitude in Providing Breastfeeding Support to Mothers

Breastfeeding provides many health benefits for both mother and baby, and mothers need support and encouragement in order to have breastfeeding success. The breastfeeding support that mothers receive should come from communities, healthcare providers, and nursing students. However, researchers reported that nursing students are not receiving the educational preparation to provide breastfeeding support that mothers need. The lecture only approach to breastfeeding education is not enough to provide the students with the knowledge and skill needed to provide breastfeeding support.  Because of the many benefits that an interaction with a standardized patient (SP) provides, and because the researcher did not find any studies that utilized SPs as a teaching strategy with breastfeeding education, the integration of an SP encounter as a teaching strategy was utilized for the purposes of this study.

The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the effect an evidence-based educational intervention had on baccalaureate nursing students’ knowledge and attitude in regard to breastfeeding support provided for mothers.

Nurse educators and nursing students would benefit from the information provided in this presentation.

A randomized pretest-posttest design with a comparison group was used for this study. The educational intervention included an evidence-based breastfeeding lecture followed by a simulation role-play scenario with an SP for the experimental group and an educational breastfeeding video for the control group. The researcher utilized the Australian Breastfeeding Knowledge and Attitude Questionnaire (ABKAQ) to determine pretest and posttest breastfeeding knowledge and attitude scores of the nursing students.

Results revealed a statistically significant difference in pretest and posttest scores in regard to the students’ breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes toward breastfeeding.  

There was statistically significant evidence at the .05 level to indicate an improvement in the nursing students’ breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes toward breastfeeding based on the pretest and posttest knowledge and attitude scores. 

The evidence-based breastfeeding educational interventions improved nursing students’ breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes toward breastfeeding. The results of this study are consistent with reports from other researchers in that an SP encounter as an educational strategy was beneficial in improving communication and critical thinking skills in students.

The interventions also helped to improve knowledge and skill the students need to provide breastfeeding support to mothers.