Women's sense of coherence and its association with early weaning

Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether there is an association between sense of coherence levels and early weaning.

Method: This study had a quantitative nature and a cross-sectional design. Factors associated with early weaning (interruption of maternal breastfeeding) were investigated in a sample of 425 women older than 18 years, mothers of children up to 36 months of age who were not twins, with no sensory or motor deficiencies, without distinction of ethnicity or social class. The chi-squared test, with a significance level of 5%, was used to evaluate the association between the dependent variable (early weaning) and the independent variables (socioeconomic, demographic factors and sense of coherence level). Variables with p≤0.20 were tested by the multiple logistic regression model. Odds ratio and the respective 95% confidence intervals were estimated. All statistical tests were performed using the SAS 9.2 software.

Results: The results showed that mothers with greater sense of coherence were 1.82 times more likely to maintain breastfeeding for longer periods (p=0.02).

Conclusions: The identification of mothers with low sense of coherence allows the early intervention of health professionals, contributing to decrease the rates of early weaning in the population.

Keywords: Aleitamento; Breastfeeding; Desmame; Sense of coherence; Senso de coerência; Weaning.