Medical and Nursing Students' Perceptions of and Advice for Extended Breastfeeding: An Exploratory Study.

Although the health benefits to both mother and child produced by breastfeeding have been documented, and numerous efforts have been made to promote breastfeeding rates in the United States, extended breastfeeding (breastfeeding beyond 12 months) research has been largely overlooked. Guided by the Framework of Integrative Normative Influences on Stigma, this study examined how extended breastfeeding was perceived among medical and nursing students and how perceptions of extended breastfeeding were translated into stigmatizing outcomes including attitudes, behavioral predispositions, and behavioral intention to encourage weaning. One hundred and sixteen medical and nursing students enrolled at a large mid-western University completed an online survey.

Made to Feel Like Less of a Woman: The Experience of Stigma for Mothers Who Do Not Breastfeed.

Breastfeeding has become the recognized standard for good parenting, with social costs for not breastfeeding, but not every mother wants to or is able to breastfeed. This study investigated social and personal costs with no breastfeeding. An in-depth survey was conducted with 250 mothers with infants who were not breastfeeding.

Too Old to Be Breastfed? Examination of Pre-Healthcare Professionals' Beliefs About, and Emotional and Behavioral Responses toward Extended Breastfeeding.

While breastfeeding seems to be widely accepted in the United States, extended breastfeeding (defined as breastfeeding beyond 12 months of age) tends to be stigmatized. Healthcare professionals are assumed to play a significant role in supporting women who desire to practice extended breastfeeding; however, how healthcare professionals react to extended breastfeeding has not been well understood. This research surveyed 116 healthcare students, who majored in nursing and human medicine, and examined their perceived advantages and disadvantages, emotional responses to, and advice that they would provide to future mothers regarding extended breastfeeding.

Hearing loss and quality of life.

Objective: We sought to identify multidimensional factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for use in developing an inventory in which HRQoL is a core concept in evaluating the impact of hearing loss and the efficacy of rehabilitative interventions.

Method: A qualitative approach was used in which we posed two major questions to a focus group consisting of eight adults with self-reported, bilateral sensorineural hearing loss of varying degrees. In essence, those questions were: (1) How do you define quality of life?, and (2) Can you describe specific incidents in your everyday life in which your hearing loss has impacted your quality of life? The discussion was embedded within a framework that utilized a modification of the Critical Incident Technique (CIT).

Media Presentation of Breastfeeding Beliefs in Newspapers.

Despite numerous health benefits for babies and mothers, many women do not either initiate or continue breastfeeding for the recommended duration, and increasing breastfeeding is a national priority. It is important to understand media messages on the topic, given that breastfeeding is influenced by many environmental factors and that perceived norms, social support, and perceptions of difficulties predict breastfeeding. The current study analyzes how media covers (1) breastfeeding in general, (2) public breastfeeding, and (3) extended breastfeeding (past 1 year).

Risk Belief and Attitude Formation From Translated Scientific Messages About PFOA, an Environmental Risk Associated With Breast Cancer.

Evidence regarding possible environmental causes of breast cancer is advancing. Often, however, the public is not informed about these advances in a manner that is easily understandable. This research translates findings from biologists into messages at two literacy levels about perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a possible environmental contributor to breast cancer.

An Effort to Increase Organ Donor Registration Through Intergroup Competition and Electronic Word of Mouth.

The effort to increase Web organ donation registrations in Michigan by enhancing 2 types of university campaigns with social media strategies informed by social identity theory is the focus of this research. The two campaigns focused on either ingroup or rivalry outgroup social identification, and each was enhanced with individually focused social media in the first year of the campaign and with electronic word of mouth in Year 2 of the campaign. Results indicated that individually focused social media such as Facebook ads worked well in rivalry campaigns (in which registrations increased two times over baseline) but not in ingroup identification campaigns (in which registrations decreased significantly over baseline when ads were introduced in the first year of each type of campaign).

Scientific Message Translation and the Heuristic Systematic Model: Insights for Designing Educational Messages About Progesterone and Breast Cancer Risks.

Results of ongoing scientific research on environmental determinants of breast cancer are not typically presented to the public in ways they can easily understand and use to take preventive actions. In this study, results of scientific studies on progesterone exposure as a risk factor for breast cancer were translated into high and low literacy level messages. Using the heuristic systematic model, this study examined how ability, motivation, and message processing (heuristic and systematic) influenced perceptions of risk beliefs and negative attitudes about progesterone exposure among women who read the translated scientific messages.

The effects of heuristic cues, motivation, and ability on systematic processing of information about breast cancer environmental factors.

The heuristic systematic model is used to investigate how ability, motivation, and heuristic message cues predict knowledge scores for individuals receiving messages written for different literacy levels about 3 environmental risk factors for breast cancer. The 3 risk factors were the roles of genetics, progesterone, and ingesting perfluorooctanoic acid in breast cancer risk. In this study, more than 4,000 women participated in an online survey.

Comparison of communication and personal characteristics of living kidney donors and a matched quota sample.

Deceased organ donation does not meet the need for kidney transplants. Thus, it is important to examine topics relevant to kidney donors such as communication leading to the donation decision and donor characteristics. This study reports personal characteristics and communication leading to the decision to donate among living kidney donors and a demographically matched quota sample.