A SURVEY OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE ABOUT BREASTFEEDING AMONG MOTHERS ATTENDING PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTERS, YASUJ AND ITS OUTSKIRTS, 2017

Background and Aim: Despite the well-known benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for mother and baby, still, its practice is not widespread. Thus we surveyed the knowledge, attitude and practice of breastfeeding among mothers who had child between 6 to 24 months of age and attended 8 primary health care centers in Yasuj and its outskirts in 2017.Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 313 mothers were selected by nonprobability convenient sampling. We used a self-constructed reliable and valid KAP questionnaire. 1 point was given to each correct answer of knowledge (8 statements). A 5-item Likert’s scale was used for attitude statements (6 statements). The most common answer for questions of practice section were reported in percentage. For data analysis, descriptive statistics including means, standard deviations, cross tables were used by SPSS 23. Results: The mean ± SD for overall knowledge level was 5.6 ± 1.4 out of 8 and attitude level was 22.0 ± 3.7 out of 30. The lowest level of knowledge was about importance of breastfeeding as a contraceptive method, importance of continuing breastfeeding during breast inflammation and swelling and the sufficient duration time for each session of breastfeeding. The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding for first 6 months of child’s age was 51.7% among urban mothers and 75.6% among mothers from outskirts.Conclusion: In this study, the overall knowledge and attitude score about breastfeeding were above 70%. The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding for complete 6 months was above 60%.