Nursing student's knowledge about breastfeeding: Design and validation of the AprendeLact questionnaire

Background: Breastfeeding is the best source of food that a mother can offer her child during the first months of life because it provides numerous benefits for both mother and baby. Despite breastfeeding being an innate act, it requires qualified health professionals for advice and support. Objectives and participants: To design and validate a questionnaire to evaluate nursing student breastfeeding knowledge. Methods and design: Cross-sectional study. Construction and validation of the questionnaire (content validity, test-retest reliability and internal consistency). Descriptive and bivariate analyses of socio-demographic variables and the questionnaire results. Results: Optimum results were obtained in terms of internal consistency (KR-20 = 0.9) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.925) with a samples of 144 participants (mean age of 22.69 years). Statistical significance were observed among the questionnaire score and academic year, clinical practice, type of breastfeeding in childhood, knowing about support groups and participating in a breastfeeding workshop or course. Conclusion: A questionnaire on breastfeeding knowledge was validated. Nursing students progressively acquire breastfeeding skills as they advance in their undergraduate studies.