Factor Structure of Breastfeeding Self Regulation Questionnaire

The present study employs Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to investigate breastfeed motivation in first-time mothers.

The aim is to assess the factor structure of a newly developed questionnaire, Breastfeeding Self Regulation Questionnaire (BSRQ).

Items development is achieved by reviewing previous literature. Thirty five context-specific items in English are produced. Items are translated into Chinese and back translated into English using well-established translation procedures to ensure equivalency. Content validity is confirmed by a panel of experts in the lactation research field. The questionnaire is pilot tested with 10 primiparous pregnant women. Its structure is assessed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The technique used in EFA is common factor analysis with oblique rotation.

We recruited 591 participants from three antenatal clinics. The mean age was 30.7(SD 4.7) years. Fifty-two percent of the participants planned to breastfeed exclusively. EFA proposed a preliminary 3-factor structure, which was refined to be 5-factor by CFA. The 5 factors included identified regulation (factor loadings 0.67-0.78, p<0.001), intrinsic regulation (factor loadings 0.70-0.85, p<0.001), external regulation (factor loadings 0.59-0.76, p<0.001), introjected regulation (factor loadings 0.64-0.77, p<0.001), and amotivation (factor loadings 0.16-0.71, p<0.001). The goodness of fit of the CFA model was adequate with RMSEA 0.05, CFI 0.95 and SRMR 0.05.

With a psychometrically validated and reliable BSRQ, it is hoped that tailored interventions for promoting endurance of breastfeeding will be developed, which will suit the need of new mothers with different levels of self-determination.