KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF MEN ABOUT EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING IN EGOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Poor breastfeeding practice has been implicated as one of the cause of malnutrition in infancy. Malnutrition underlies the cause of 50% of mortality in under-five children worldwide. Exclusive Breast Feeding (EBF) rate in Nigeria is low, and this low practice has been attributed to lack of knowledge, demand of work place, culture, age and marital status of nursing mothers. The role of men has also been found to be very crucial to the practice of EBF, however, knowledge and attitude of men that can influence EBF has not been adequately investigated. This study was therefore conducted to assess the knowledge and attitude of men towards the practice of EBF in Egor Local Government Area (LGA) of Edo State, Nigeria. Using descriptive cross-sectional design, a three-stage sampling technique was used to select 392 married men from households in Egor LGA of Edo State. A pretested, semi-structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect information on demography, socio-economic characteristics, knowledge of adequate infant feeding practice for the first six months and attitude towards EBF practice. A scale of 0–14 was used to assess knowledge, and classified: as poor (0–4.0), average (4.1–9.0) and high (9.1–14.0). Attitude was assessed on a 15-item Likert scale with a maximum score of 75; a score of 15.0–35.0 being classified as not supportive, 35.1–50.0 as moderately supportive and 50.1–75.0 as high supportive. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, correlation and ANOVA. Level of significance was set at 5%. Respondents’ mean (SD) age was 40.4(±8.4) years, 90.1% were Christians and 4.6% Muslims. Many (54.6%) had secondary education, 25.1% tertiary, 16.6% primary and 4.8% had no formal education. Mean knowledge score was 5.6±1.8, 71.2% had average knowledge, 28.6% had low knowledge and 0.3% had high knowledge. Age, occupation and income had no significant relationship to knowledge. Knowledge was found to significantly increase with level of education. Mean attitude score was 32.3±1.4, 9.4% had highly supportive attitude, 50.0% moderately supportive attitude, while 40.6% were not supportive. Eight percent and 32.7% supported their wives’ breastfeeding in non-secluded places and secluded places respectively. Reasons for not supporting breastfeeding in non-secluded places included: to avoid the contamination of breastmilk (36.7%), not to expose mother’s body (24.5%), may not be hygienic for mother and child (19.6%). Age and income were not significantly associated with attitude. Education was significantly associated with support for EBF: 3.0% of those with tertiary education had a very supportive attitude compared with 12.1% with secondary education, 6.5% of those with primary education and 23.5% without formal education. Knowledge of EBF was inversely related to attitude (r= -0.23). Knowledge and attitude of men towards exclusive breastfeeding was average. There is a need to target men with nutrition education which will improve their knowledge and support for exclusive breastfeeding.