A theory of planned behavior-based structural model for breast-feeding.
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.
Duckett
L
L
School of Nursing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455-0342, USA.
Henly
S
S
Avery
M
M
Potter
S
S
Hills-Bonczyk
S
S
Hulden
R
R
Savik
K
K
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*