Effectiveness of Implementation Strategy for a Breastfeeding Guideline in Primary Care: Cluster Randomised Trial

Protection and promotion of breastfeeding is considered a priority in Europe where only 22% of children less than 6 months old are exclusively breastfed. In Spain this percentage reaches 24.8% but in our city it falls to 18.26%. Various studies emphasise that the improvement of these results falls upon the training of health professionals. Following the recommendations of a breastfeeding guide can modify professional practice and improve results with respect to patients.

Aim:to determine whether an implementation strategy for a breastfeeding guide is more effective than the usual practice (simple circulation of the guide) in terms of increasing the percentage of children receiving exclusive or preferential breastfeeding at 6 months age.

Method/Design: The present work involves a community, clinical trial, randomised by clusters in Primary Health Care Centres in Madrid Region (Spain). The project aims at determining whether the use of implementation strategy (including training session, information distribution, an opinion leader) of Breastfeeding CPG in primary care is more effective than the usual practice of mere circulation.

Number of patients required will be 240 (n=120 in the intervention group and control group), all mothers of children born during the study period (6 months), who come to the health centre on the first visit of child attention programme and give their consent to participate.

The main outcome variable is age at which breastfeeding ceases; secondary outcome variables include sex, age, educational level.