A Study to Compare the Attitude of Married and Unmarried Men towards Breast Feeding

The views of fathers have been shown to be important determinants of infant feeding decisions, but men's perceptions of breastfeeding and formula feeding are rarely explored. Our objectives were to address this gap and examine the attitude of men towards breast feeding. The focus of this study was to assess breastfeeding attitudes among men population to provide a foundation for intervention to increase duration of exclusive breastfeeding rates.

A cross-sectional comparative study was conducted among 100 men. The population consisted of married and unmarried men in Tricity (Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali) enrolled through Convenience sampling technique. Likert scale was used to assess the attitude of men regarding breastfeeding. T-test was used to determine the attitude of married and unmarried men and chi-square was adopted to determine the association between attitude with selected socio demographical variables like age, marital status, family type and education status.

Results showed that Out of 100 men (50 married, 50 unmarried), majority of (65%) of men had their education qualification as graduation and majority of (85%) belongs to nuclear family. Maximum (51%) of men have their age more than 25 years. The mean score of married men regarding breastfeeding attitude is 76.26 with standard deviation 6.53, unmarried men with total mean score 76.08 with standard deviation of 7.43. Overall Majority 71% male have positive attitude towards breastfeeding and only 29% men have negative attitude towards breastfeeding. Majority of (72%) married men have positive attitude and only 14(28%) married men have negative attitude towards breastfeeding. Whereas majority (70%) unmarried men have positive attitude and only 15(30%) of unmarried men have negative attitude towards breastfeeding. Independence t test showed that there is no significant diffences between the attitude of married and unmarried men towards breastfeeding (p>.005). There was no significant association between attitude score and selected variables like marital status, age, education qualification, and type of family (p> .005).This study helps to determine what attitudes are prevailing among married and unmarried men population. And certain education interventions need to be provided to unmarried men regarding breastfeeding.