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Breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes of health professional students: a systematic review

Overview of attention for article published in International Breastfeeding Journal, February 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#28 of 604)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

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78 X users
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3 Facebook pages
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1 Google+ user

Citations

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74 Dimensions

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234 Mendeley
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Title
Breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes of health professional students: a systematic review
Published in
International Breastfeeding Journal, February 2018
DOI 10.1186/s13006-018-0153-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Shu-Fei Yang, Yenna Salamonson, Elaine Burns, Virginia Schmied

Abstract

Breastfeeding support from health professionals can be effective in influencing a mother's decision to initiate and maintain breastfeeding. However, health professionals, including nursing students, do not always receive adequate breastfeeding education during their foundational education programme to effectively help mothers. In this paper, we report on a systematic review of the literature that aimed to describe nursing and other health professional students' knowledge and attitudes towards breastfeeding, and examine educational interventions designed to increase breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes amongst health professional students. A systematic review of peer reviewed literature was performed. The search for literature was conducted utilising six electronic databases, CINAHL, MEDLINE, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane, for studies published in English from January 2000 to March 2017. Studies focused on nursing students' or other health professional students' knowledge, attitudes or experiences related to breastfeeding. Intervention studies to improve knowledge and attitudes, were also included. All papers were reviewed using the relevant Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist. Fourteen studies were included in the review. This review indicates that in some settings, health professional students demonstrated mid-range scores on breastfeeding attitudes, and their knowledge of breastfeeding was limited, particularly in relation to breastfeeding assessment and management. All of the studies that tested a specialised breastfeeding education programme, appeared to increase nursing students' knowledge overall or aspects of their knowledge related to breastfeeding. Several factors were found to influence breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes, including timing of maternal and child health curriculum component, previous personal breastfeeding experience, gender, cultural practices and government legislation. Based on this review, it appears that nursing curriculum, or specialised programmes that emphasise the importance of breastfeeding initiation, can improve breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes and students' confidence in helping and guiding breastfeeding mothers.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 78 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 234 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 234 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 34 15%
Student > Master 23 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 16 7%
Other 11 5%
Researcher 11 5%
Other 41 18%
Unknown 98 42%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 64 27%
Medicine and Dentistry 30 13%
Social Sciences 12 5%
Psychology 5 2%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 2%
Other 19 8%
Unknown 100 43%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 55. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 August 2021.
All research outputs
#763,679
of 25,243,918 outputs
Outputs from International Breastfeeding Journal
#28
of 604 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#17,282
of 337,203 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Breastfeeding Journal
#2
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,243,918 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 604 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 337,203 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.