Dataset Information

Development of a questionnaire to assess maternal attitudes towards infant growth and milk feeding practices.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is increasing recognition that public health strategies to prevent childhood obesity need to start early in life. Any behavioural interventions need to target maternal attitudes and infant feeding practices, This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of a questionnaire to assess maternal attitudes towards infant growth and milk feeding practices.

Methods

We designed a 57-item (19 questions), self-administered questionnaire to measure the following four domains- 1) type of milk feeding, decision making and sources of advice; 2) frequency and quantity of milk feeds; 3) attitudes to infant feeding and growth; and 4) theory-based beliefs about following infant feeding recommendations. Forty mothers completed the questionnaire on two occasions six days apart (to assess test-retest reliability) and then participated in a semi-structured, open-ended telephone interview covering the same domains (to assess criterion validity). Percentage agreement, Cohen's Kappas (for categorical variables) and Spearman's correlation coefficients (for continuous variables) were used to quantify reliability and validity. Internal consistency between theory-based constructs (self-efficacy, outcome expectancy and intention) was quantified by Chronbach's alpha.

Results

Of the 57 questionnaire items 51 (89%) had percentage agreement above 70% indicating good test-retest reliability, and the remaining 6 items had moderate or substantial levels of agreement (kappa 0.41-0.68). Comparing questionnaire with interview coding (validity), percentage agreement was above 66% for 39/57 items (68%). Of the 16 items with percentage agreement below 66%, only five had kappa values below 0.20 (two items had insufficient interview responses). Internal consistency was 0.51, 0.79 and 0.90 for self-efficacy, outcome expectancy and intention respectively.

Conclusions

This questionnaire could be a useful tool in understanding the determinants of infant feeding and the 'causal mechanism' of interventions that target infant feeding practices to prevent early obesity.

SUBMITTER: Lakshman RR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3111341 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Development of a questionnaire to assess maternal attitudes towards infant growth and milk feeding practices.

Lakshman Rajalakshmi R RR Landsbaugh Jill R JR Schiff Annie A Hardeman Wendy W Ong Ken K KK Griffin Simon J SJ

The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity 20110421

<h4>Background</h4>There is increasing recognition that public health strategies to prevent childhood obesity need to start early in life. Any behavioural interventions need to target maternal attitudes and infant feeding practices, This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of a questionnaire to assess maternal attitudes towards infant growth and milk feeding practices.<h4>Methods</h4>We designed a 57-item (19 questions), self-administered questionnaire to measure the follo ...[more]

PMID: 21510900

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Project description:BackgroundThe rapid increase in non-communicable chronic diseases in people of working age has had a major effect on health care utilization, productivity and economy. Lifestyle and diet are recognized as being major risk determinants involved. Disease prevention strategies need to be based on people's understanding of nutritional knowledge, attitudes and practice. This study evaluates the validity of a new nutritional knowledge and practice questionnaire specifically developed for assessing individuals of working age in a Thai population.MethodsThe questionnaire was constructed and based on previous relevant literature and its content validity was scrutinized by an expert panel. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to reduce the number of questions included. Subsequently, data from a cross-sectional study of 1,032 participants were used to evaluate the reliability and validity of this questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire constructed for assessing knowledge and attitude was evaluated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). For the practice component, set criteria were applied to determine the final variables used.ResultsCFA of the nutritional knowledge component suggested that all the variables in the model fitted with the data (χ2 = 80.17, df = 66, p > 0.05, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.01, SRMR = 0.02). The CFA final model for the nutritional knowledge included three factors (food recommendation, nutrients related to diseases, and healthy diet) with a total of 14 questions. For nutrition attitude, CFA also revealed a good fit (χ2 = 178.14, df = 93, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.03, SRMR = 0.03). The final CFA model for nutritional attitude included three factors (food choice, healthy diet and food recommendation) with a total of 16 questions. For practice items, the number of questions was reduced from 76 to 60.ConclusionsQuestionnaire development should use a logical, systematic and structured approach. Results from our evaluation process demonstrates the construction validity of the nutritional knowledge and practice questionnaire developed. This questionnaire can be further modified for use in other countries within the region.

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Dataset Information

Development of a questionnaire to assess maternal attitudes towards infant growth and milk feeding practices.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Development of a questionnaire to assess maternal attitudes towards infant growth and milk feeding practices.

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