Abstract
BackgroundLate preterm infants suffer from many short-term and long-term problems after birth. The key factor in fighting these problems is effective breastfeeding. The present study aimedto determine the breastfeeding self-efficacy and its relationship with the perceived stress and breastfeeding performance in mothers with late preterm infants. MethodsIn this prospective study, 171 nursing mothers with late preterm infants born in Alzahra Medical Center of Tabriz, Iran, who met the conditions of this study were selected through convenience sampling. The Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (BSES- SF) was employed to measure breastfeeding self-efficacy and 14-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS14) was used to measure the perceived stress during 24 hours after giving birth and when the child was 4 months old the breastfeeding performance was measured by the standard breastfeeding performance questionnaire. The data were analyzed by Pearson and Spearman’s correlation tests, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Multiple Linear Regression.ResultsThe mean (standard deviation) of breastfeeding self-efficacy equaled 50.0 (7.8) from the scores ranging between13-65 and the mean (standard deviation) of the perceived stress equaled to 26.5 (8.8) from the scores ranging between 0-56. The median (25-75 percentiles) of breastfeeding performance score in the mothers equaled 2.0 (1.0 to 3.0) from the scores ranging between 0-6. On the basis of multiple linear regression and through adjusting the personal-social characteristic, by increasing the score of the breastfeeding self-efficacy, the perceived stress was decreased to a statistically significant amount (B=-0.1, 95%CI=-0.3 to 0.0), however, there was no statistically significant relationship between breastfeeding self-efficacy and breastfeeding performance (p=0.418). ConclusionDue to the modifiable variability of breastfeeding self-efficacy and its role in perceived maternal stress, the development of appropriate strategies to further increase breastfeeding self-efficacy and provide more support to these mothers and infants is of particular importance.
