Comparison of Knowledge, Attitude, Motivation-to-Breastfeed Exclusively between Allied Health Students and Students of Other Fields at Universitas Padjadjaran

University students are among future intellectuals who will play an important role in community education and empowerment, especially on the topic of exclusive breastfeeding, in which the coverage is low in Indonesia. This study aimed to compare students’ knowledge, attitude, and motivation-to-breastfeed exclusively between allied health studies (AHS), i.e medicine and midwifery, and other fields studies (OFS), i.e. psychology, communication, literacy, and farming. Further information will be gained from exploring the correlation of knowledge-attitude, as well as attitude - motivation in both groups. A study was conducted among Indonesian female students in their final year of bachelor degree in October to November 2013. The subjects recruited were 196/340 female AHS and 300/633 female OFS. The remaining students were absent at data collection time. Validity and reliability of the questionnaires were satisfactory. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Committee on Health Research Ethics, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Padjadjaran. The mean scores must be higher than the cut off points to pass. Student’s T test result showed a highly significant difference (AHS vs OFS group: 83.1 vs 71.1 for knowledge, 91.3 vs 86.4 for attitude, and 88.3 vs 83.6 for motivation-to-breastfeed exclusively, p<0.001). It is revealed also that the correlation index between knowledge-attitude as well as attitude - motivation-to- breastfeed exclusively were higher in AHS group, but some AHS students scored lower than the OFS students. Discussion on this topic is presented in this article. Corrective interventions are needed for students who scored low. This study shows a satisfactory students’ scores of knowledge, attitude, motivation-to-breastfeed exclusively. The AHS group has a better performance and correlation index between knowledge and attitude, attitude and motivation-to-breastfeed exclusively.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

11 more references, whose wording the paper’s licence keeps private.

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.