Development of the breastfeeding support scale to measure breastfeeding support from lay and professional persons, and its predictive validity in Japan

BACKGROUND: International and national organizations recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, but many women stop earlier. Lay and professional persons can support mothers’ efforts to overcome breastfeeding difficulties. Considering breastfeeding support to comprise emotional support, practical help, and information offered to women who desire to breastfeed (by professionals, family members, and others), we developed and tested a scale to measure it in Japan. METHODS: A total of 31 items were generated by literature review and from the authors’ clinical experiences. Those items were tested with 243 mothers who visited public health centers in Tokyo for their infant’s health check-up 3 months after birth. Breastfeeding support and infant feeding status were then assessed 5 months after birth. All the data were collected by using self-administered questionnaires. RESULTS: On the basis of the results of factor analysis, the number of items was reduced to 11. There were three factors: support from breastfeeding peers and from people in specifically named healthcare professions, practical help, and support from people the mother can rely on to help meet emotional needs and address breastfeeding concerns. Internal-consistency reliability (alpha) of scores on the 11-item scale was 0.83 when measured 3 months postpartum and 0.85 when measured 5 months postpartum. Higher scores on the 11-item scale 3 months postpartum were associated with more breastfeeding exclusivity both at that time (Kruskal–Wallis test, chi-squared = 14.871, df = 3, n = 211, p = 0.002, eta-squared = 0.071) and also 5 months postpartum (Kruskal–Wallis test, chi-squared = 8.556, df = 3, n = 159, p = 0.036, eta-squared = 0.054). Further, the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve was 0.73 (95% CI [0.57–0.88]), which indicates that scores on the 11-item scale 3 months postpartum may be useful to predict which mothers will be less exclusive in breastfeeding 5 months postpartum. In conclusion, scores on this 11-item scale were reasonably reliable and valid for measuring breastfeeding support provided by lay and professional persons to mothers in Japan. Further research is required to evaluate this scale’s applicability in other settings.