P3.049: Expressing a New Understanding of Breastfeeding Medicine Education

Background: Maternal and infant mortality and morbidity remain significant global challenges, particularly among minority populations in North America, where the U.S. reports some of the highest rates among developed nations. Breastfeeding has been shown to reduce both infant and maternal mortality and morbidity yet training in breastfeeding medicine remains insufficient in medical education. This study investigates the relationships between breastfeeding knowledge, culture, attitudes, and recall of breastfeeding medicine curriculum among students at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. We hypothesized that these factors are positively correlated and that understanding these relationships could inform the development of more effective breastfeeding education curricula.

Methods: A 30-question survey assessed students' attitudes, cultural exposure, and knowledge of breastfeeding medicine, along with preferences for educational delivery. The survey was administered via Qualtrics to UCF College of Medicine (M.D.) students, yielding 130 de-identified responses (36.1% response rate): 81 females, 47 males, and 2 who preferred not to answer. Respondents were mostly from the U.S. (114), with a few international students (6). The data was also mapped to include the poverty rate for respondents’ childhood ZIP codes, ranging from 1.4% to 56.6%, with a median of 9.1%.

We define knowledge as the cognitive understanding of breastfeeding medicine, attitudes as opinions or openness toward breastfeeding education, and culture as experiential factors like exposure to breastfeeding. Survey responses were summed and averaged to provide composite scores for each domain. Internal reliability was confirmed by including items with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.7 or higher. Pearson correlation, regression analysis, and descriptive statistics were employed in analysis.

Results: The study found significant correlations between attitude, culture, and knowledge scores at the 0.01 level, rejecting the null hypothesis. Correlations remained significant when broken out by gender, with attitude and knowledge for female students being an exception. Mean scores for all categories were low, indicating an overall gap in breastfeeding education and supportive external experiences and attitudes. (Culture 27.43%, curriculum 26.99%, knowledge 49.59%, attitude 54.77%). Regression analysis showed strong standardized beta and t scores, highlighting the significant influence of each factor on knowledge, with curriculum having the strongest impact. (Figure)

Additional analysis revealed relationships between poverty, specialty interests, and the studied factors, as well as insights into more bottle-feeding experiences than breastfeeding, which can guide curriculum revisions.

Conclusion: This study highlights gaps in breastfeeding medicine education within medical curricula and provides data to inform curricular design. Cultural exposure, attitudes, and foundational knowledge are key factors to integrate into breastfeeding medicine curricula. Integrating culture-informed pedagogy, active learning strategies, and evidence-based breastfeeding content into Undergraduate Medical Education training could better equip future physicians to support breastfeeding, providing better patient care and helping to reduce maternal infant mortality and morbidity.