The effect of a promotion campaign on attitudes of adolescent females towards breastfeeding.
We determined the effect of a breastfeeding promotional campaign on attitudes and knowledge of adolescent females, by use of a pre- and post-campaign survey. The total population surveyed consisted of 463 girls with a mean age of 16 distributed throughout three grades (10 to 12) in two high schools. The campaign ran for five weeks including a television commercial and advertisement in local newspapers. Attitudes towards breastfeeding were positively influenced by the campaign but only the television commercial was found to change attitudes (p less than 0.05). The campaign did not increase knowledge scores. Those completing the pre-test were found to have both a higher knowledge and attitude score on the post-test (P less than 0.05) than those who did not complete the pre-test. We suggest that adolescents will develop a positive attitude to breastfeeding when actively targeted by media and when exposed to breastfeeding information in the classroom.
Friel
J K
JK
Hudson
N I
NI
Banoub
S
S
Ross
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002170:Canada; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D011897:Random Allocation