Validation of the Spanish-Mexican Version of the Australian Breastfeeding Attitude Questionnaire in Higher Education Health Students

Abstract

Positive attitudes towards breastfeeding in health professionals/students have been associated with increasing their confidence to provide support and accompaniment to mothers. In Mexico, there is no valid/reliable tool to assess attitudes towards breastfeeding in this population. The Australian Breastfeeding Attitudes (and Knowledge) Questionnaire (ABAQ) measures attitudes in the Australian population. We aimed to adapt and validate the ABAQ in Mexican health students. We included 264 health students (nursing, nutrition, and medicine) from the University of Guadalajara. Bilingual translators carried out the Spanish adaptation with a reverse translation into English. Experts evaluated the content validity. Reliability was evaluated through an internal consistency analysis (Cronbach's alpha) and construct validity through convergent-divergent validation, item-total correlation, exploratory factor analysis (by principal components), and confirmatory factor analysis. According to the exploratory factor analysis, only one component was identified. Seven items were removed (low correlation between items ≤0.2 and low factor load ≤0.3). The Cronbach's alpha was 0.78. According to the confirmatory factor analysis, the one-factor solution of the ABAQ-13Mx showed a good model fit (X² = 98.41, G = 62, p = 0.02, CFI = 0.940, and RMSEA = 0.048). The ABAQ-13Mx is a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating attitudes towards breastfeeding in Mexican health degree students.

Keywords: Spanish language; breastfeeding; breastfeeding attitudes questionnaire; health students; questionnaire validation; validation study.

Figure 1

One-factor confirmatory analysis of the Spanish version of the ABAQ-13Mx.