BACKGROUND New Zealand (NZ) has a high rate of breastfeeding initiation, declining sharply during the first six months. Although there is a range of support available to breastfeeding mothers, access can be problematic in rural areas. To extend the accessibility of breastfeeding support to rural women, a Primary Health Organisation established a breastfeeding peer supporters (BPS) programme (Mum4Mum - M4M). OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to gain an understanding of the impact of the BPS training programme on participants, as well as understanding how they utilised the information, both personally and in their communities. METHODS All women who had completed the M4M training and for whom current contact details were available were contacted and invited to complete an online survey. The text data contained in returned surveys was collated and analysed using a general inductive thematic approach. RESULTS Forty-one out of 100 BPS graduates completed the survey. Five key themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: knowledge gained and shared; increased confidence; role of peer support; acceptance; personal satisfaction. CONCLUSION The M4M programme improved the personal knowledge and skills of participants and enhanced confidence in breastfeeding ability, which in turn empowered responding participants to successfully support other women to breastfeed in their communities. As a consequence, respondents reported experiencing a heightened sense of personal satisfaction. Furthermore, the initiative successfully established a network of BPS across a sparsely populated rural area of NZ.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 31 July 2017.
All research outputs
#8,038,740
of 27,878,031 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Primary Health Care
#73
of 333 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#109,697
of 338,964 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Primary Health Care
#2
of 9 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,878,031 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 333 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.8. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 338,964 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 9 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 7 of them.
