M A Arif, Zafar Mehdi.
Knowledge and attitude of school teachers regarding breast-feeding.
Pak J Med Sci Jan ;18(2):99-107.

Objective: Breast milk meets all the nutritional needs of the baby safely and adequately. In developing countries like Pakistan where malnutrition is common and infant mortality rate is high, all possible measures should be taken to support and promote breast-feeding. In this regard school teachers can play an important role because not only they bring up their own children, but also they can effectively impart knowledge about breast-feeding in an appropriate way to their students. The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of school teachers regarding breast-feeding. Design: A pre-tested questionnaire in urdu with 27 open ended questions was administered to each respondent individually who completed it under supervision. Participants: 375 female school teachers, 125 each from upper, middle and lower socio-economic areas of Karachi. Outcome: Assessment of breast-feeding knowledge and attitude. Results: The percentage of correct answers by teachers of upper class area for 27 questions was 33.23%, of middle class area 32.36% and lower class area 43.00%. The overall percentage of correct answers was 34.4% with no significant difference between the three groups. We documented that deficit in the knowledge was significant in all the three groups. When analyzed according to the five main topics of breast-feeding, we found no significant difference in knowledge between the three socio-economic groups although knowledge of one or the other group was significantly better regarding individual questions. Conclusion: The overall knowledge of teachers about the subject of breast-feeding was markedly deficient with no statistically significant difference between the teachers of three socioeconomic areas.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com