Fear of COVID-19 and related factors affecting mothers' breastfeeding self-efficacy during the pandemic.
Sibel Ergün, Serap Kaynak, Beray Aydın
PMID 36279566WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers of babies aged 0 to 24 months reported high breastfeeding confidence during the pandemic.
Higher fear of COVID-19, breastfeeding more often, and suspecting COVID-19 were linked with higher confidence; primary school was linked with lower confidence.
Key findings
01The mean breastfeeding self-efficacy score was 56.18, and the paper classifies scores of 52 to 70 as high.
02Breastfeeding self-efficacy had a significant positive correlation with fear of COVID-19 (r = .148, p = .003) and with breastfeeding behavior of mothers with suspected COVID-19 (r = .197, p = .000).
03In the regression model, higher fear of COVID-19, breastfeeding more frequently during the pandemic, and breastfeeding by mothers with suspected COVID-19 were associated with higher breastfeeding self-efficacy, while primary school education was associated with lower breastfeeding self-efficacy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was limited to mothers in Balıkesir, so it may not apply to other regions. Data were collected once while the pandemic was ongoing, so the study cannot show change over time or cause. Participants were recruited through social media, had to be literate, and had to be currently breastfeeding with no chronic or mental illness, so it says nothing about mothers outside those groups. The findings are associations from self-report questionnaires, not results of a tested breastfeeding support intervention. The text and Table 2 give different education distributions, and Table 2 reports fear scores by occupation below the stated scale minimum, so some descriptive comparisons are unclear.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict of interest declaration appears in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that fear of COVID-19 or breastfeeding more frequently caused higher breastfeeding confidence. The study measured these at one time in a cross-sectional survey, so it found associations, not effects of an intervention.