title: A theory of planned behavior-based structural model for breast-feeding.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Breast-feeding is the recommended method of infant feeding because it is clearly associated with health benefits for infants and their mothers. Yet, many women who initiate breast-feeding fail to meet their own personal goals or recommended standards for duration of breast-feeding.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To refine a Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)-based structural model for explaining variability in breast-feeding intention and duration.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study design was prospective, multicorrelational, and longitudinal. Out of the total sample of 635 women, 602 mothers of healthy, full-term infants provided complete datasets over the entire course of their breast-feeding experience and these datasets were used in the modeling analyses. Simultaneous multisample analysis of covariance structures was used to develop the model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The resulting TPB for Breast-Feeding (TPB-BrF) describes the rational, motivational processes of the original TPB, but reconfigures the relationships among them, for homemakers (TPB-BrF/H), women employed half-time or less (TPB-BrF/EL), and women employed more than half-time (TPB-BrF/EM). Mothers' early postpartum ratings of adequacy of milk supply and stimulus conditions of maternal education and breast-feeding knowledge were included in the TPB-BrF to better explain breast-feeding outcomes. Model complexity increased with employment effort.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The TPB-BrF is a comprehensive, theoretically based, empirically verified model that can serve as a useful heuristic for understanding the personal motivational components of breast-feeding behavior.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455-0342, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Duckett
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Henly
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Avery
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Potter
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hills-Bonczyk
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hulden
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Savik
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001942:Breast Feeding / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009042:Motivation; D010934:Planning Techniques; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014931:Women, Working / Q000523:psychology*