Impact of Peer Education on Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy in Primiparous Women: a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Primiparous women who start breastfeeding face with many challenges. Breastfeeding self-efficacy is an important psychological and motivational influencing factor in breastfeeding success. The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of peer education on breastfeeding self-efficacy in primiparous women.
This cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted among 107 primiparous women. Six health centers were selected and randomly divided into two control and intervention groups. Women were recruited through consecutive sampling. The control group received two routine educational sessions in the health centers (one session before and one session after childbirth). Intervention group received two more sessions of breastfeeding education before and after delivery from peers that were qualified and experienced two years of successful breastfeeding. Data were collected using the Breastfeeding Self-efficacy questionnaire at eight weeks postpartum. Data were analyzed in the SPSS-20 using the t-test and chi-squared test.
The mean score of breastfeeding self-efficacy in the control and intervention groups were 46.55± 6.23 and 51.87± 6.08, respectively after the intervention (p>0.001).
The findings of this study revealed that breastfeeding through peer education increased self-efficacy in primiparous women eight weeks after the education.