The Attitudes of Polish Women towards Breastfeeding Based on the Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS)

Abstract

Background: The Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS), which is used for the assessment of attitudes towards breastfeeding, has been found to be reliable and valid in a number of countries, but has not yet been psychometrically tested in Polish women. The purpose of the study was to report on the cultural adaptation of the IIFAS to Polish settings and on its validation, to evaluate the breastfeeding attitudes in Polish women who recently gave birth, and to identify the determinants of these attitudes. Methods: The study was performed in a group of 401 women in their first postpartum days. Results: Cronbach’s α for the scale was 0.725. Discriminative power coefficients of all questionnaire items were higher than 0.2. Subscales were strongly correlated with the total score, with a correlation coefficient of 0.803 for the “favorable toward breastfeeding” subscale (p < 0.001), and 0.803 for the “favorable toward formula feeding” subscale (p < 0.05). For the item “A mother who occasionally drinks alcohol should not breastfeed her baby”, the factor loading did not reach the criterion value, and so the item was not included in further analyses. The mean IIFAS score was 63.12 (±7.34). Conclusions: The Polish version of the IIFAS is a reliable and appropriate measure of women’s attitudes towards infant feeding in Polish settings, with acceptable psychometric properties and construct validity.