Development of a Scale to Measure Comfort of Breastfeeding Perceived by Mothers

Abstract

This study aims to develop a scale to measure the comfort of breastfeeding perceived by mothers. We created question items based on interview data of breastfeeding mothers, evaluated the content validity, and created a draft scale. Using the draft scale, a web-based anonymous survey was conducted with mothers who breastfeed infants aged 3 to 6 months to verify its reliability and validity. As the results of factor analysis on 553 responses and the examination of the reliability, we developed a scale for comfort of breastfeeding perceived by the mothers with 25 items in the following four factors: Feelings of happiness while breastfeeding, Posture with comfortable breastfeeding, Sense of ease in the supportive environment, and Satisfaction with the amount of breast milk and feeding method. Cronbach’s α coefficient for the total scale was .884. We examined the construct validity using the known group method. There were differences by nutritional method: the scores of the complete breastfeeding group were statistically significantly higher than those of the mixed nutrition and the mostly artificial nutrition groups. The scores of mothers with breastfeeding difficulty factors, such as preterm or multiple births in the early postpartum period, were significantly lower than those without such factors.