Abstract

Infant feeding practices can greatly impact a child's life with far reaching implications based upon decisions a mother makes for her newborn. Breastfeeding is the preferred method of infant feeding because of its association with health benefits to both the mother and child. The prevalence of breastfeeding among rural, low income, disadvantaged groups to include Native American (NA) and African American (AA) adolescent mothers is low. NAs and AAs bear a disproportionate burden of illness and health risks compared to other races and ethnic groups in the United States. Breastfeeding is a targeted public health strategy to improve the health of infants and children and decrease or eliminate the gap of health disparities among the maternal-child aggregate populations in our nation. The purpose of the study was to (1) test the Theory of Planned Behavior by examining the relationship of the components (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control/ self-efficacy, and breastfeeding knowledge) to determine breastfeeding intention and initiation of rural, low-income Native American (NA) and African American (AA) adolescent mothers in rural communities in southeastern North Carolina; (2) determine the significant similarities and differences between breastfeeding and formula feeding adolescent groups related to the constructs; (3) explore the relationship of intention to initiation, and (4) examine the relationship between sociodemographic variables with breastfeeding intention and initiation of adolescent mothers.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3624909; ProQuest document ID: 1554346682. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Cynthia H. Herndon, PhD, RN, WHNP-BC, CNE, CBEC, Nurse Consultant II

Sigma Membership

Epsilon

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Native Americans, African Americans, Adolescent Females, Breastfeeding, Rural and Low-Income

Advisor

Marie E. Pokorny

Second Advisor

Melvin S. Swanson

Third Advisor

Elizabeth Jesse

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

East Carolina University

Degree Year

2014

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2022-04-11

Full Text of Presentation

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