Survey on breastfeeding among Chinese female physicians and nurses

Yan‐qiong Ouyang, You‐xian Xu and Qing Zhang

Nursing & Health Sciences, 2012, vol. 14, issue 3, 298-303

Abstract: The present study investigated knowledge of and beliefs about breastfeeding among Chinese female physicians and nurses and their breastfeeding practices. This study documented knowledge, attitudes and practices of breastfeeding among Chinese medical staff. A total of 367 female physicians and nurses completed a self‐administered, anonymous questionnaire; 96.2% indicated that breastfeeding was natural, but 29.2% thought it difficult. Only 18.5% of the participants questioned breastfeeding women on feeding status, and 12.8% gave breastfeeding advice when asked. After graduation from school, 79.3% of the participants stated that they did not receive training in breastfeeding. In personal practice, 69.2% initiated breastfeeding; 19.1% were still breastfeeding at 4 months, and only three nurses continued breastfeeding for more than 1 year. In conclusion, breastfeeding‐related knowledge is surprisingly poor, and attitudes are less positive. The exclusive breastfeeding rate was found to be low among Chinese female physicians and nurses. The findings highlight the need to re‐educate medical staff on breastfeeding, and imply the need for Baby‐Friendly Hospital Initiative implementation/training.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-2018.2012.00699.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:nuhsci:v:14:y:2012:i:3:p:298-303

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Nursing & Health Sciences from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().