Relationship between health literacy levels and breastfeeding self-efficacy perceptions of pregnant women

BACKGROUND: Health literacy during pregnancy plays a critical role in maternal and infant health outcomes. Adequate health literacy may influence women's ability to access, understand, evaluate, and apply health information related to breastfeeding. This study aimed to describe pregnant women's levels of health literacy and prenatal breastfeeding self-efficacy, to evaluate differences according to descriptive and obstetric characteristics, and to examine the relationship between these two variables. METHODS: A descriptive-correlational study was conducted using convenience sampling. The study included 292 third-trimester pregnant women who were admitted to the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Training and Research Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic for prenatal control between July and September 2020, met the research criteria, and agreed to participate. The Personal Information Form, the Turkish Health Literacy Scale-32 (THLS-32), and the Prenatal Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale (PBSES) were administered through face-to-face structured interviews. RESULTS: The mean total score of the THLS-32 was 32.81 ± 9.93, and the mean PBSES score was 79.29 ± 14.65. It was determined that 33.2% of the pregnant women had a problematic-limited level of health literacy. A positive and statistically significant relationship was found between the mean THLS-32 total and subscale scores and the mean PBSES score of pregnant women (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that pregnant women had a problematic-limited level of health literacy and relatively high levels of perceived breastfeeding self-efficacy. A positive and statistically significant association was found between health literacy and breastfeeding self-efficacy. These findings suggest that integrating health literacy-focused education into antenatal care may be beneficial.