| dc.description.abstract | International Code on marketing BMS was developed by the World Health
Organization, to protect lactating mothers and healthcare personnel from commercial
pressure by BMS manufacturers. Nursing officers are obligated to promote,
encourage, protect and acquaint themselves with their obligations in accordance with
this Code. The research problem in this study was based on the scarce empirical
evidence about the information and knowledge of the recommendations of the
International Code on BMS by health workers in Kenya responsible for counseling
mothers of new-born babies on breastfeeding. The main objective of this study was
to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices of BMS Act among nurses at
selected hospitals. The specific objectives were; establish demographic characteristics
of nurses in Mbagathi and Pumwani Hospitals, Nairobi County, to assess the
knowledge level of Nurses on the Kenya’s Breast Milk Substitute Act; determine the
attitude towards Kenya’s Breast Milk Substitute Act and to examine the practices of
the Kenya’s Breast Milk Substitute Act among nurses in Mbagathi and Pumwani
Hospitals, Nairobi County. This study adopted a cross-sectional descriptive
research/study design. Simple random sampling was used to include nurses in the
study. Yamane formula was used for the simple random sampling technique method
to come out with a sample size of 200 Nurses for study. The study used questionnaire
as the primary data collection tool. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were
used to analyses data with the help of SPSS. The study found that majority (83.9%) of
the respondents was Female. Majority (85%) were young being aged under 40 years.
Slightly above half (49.7%) were married. All the respondents were trained with
majority (65.6%) having acquired a college certificate. Over half (56.5%) of the
respondents had more than 6 years of working experience. Majority [168, 90.3%] had
a high knowledge on Kenya’s BMS Act. The vast majority [185, 99.5%] of the
respondents had a positive attitude towards BMS. Majority [153, 82.3%] of the
respondents had good practices in regards to BMS practices. The level of education
and nurses’ knowledge were significant (p=0.000) in the study. The study therefore
concluded that nurses had high knowledge, positive attitude and good practices
regarding their role in EBF promotion and discouraging use of breast milk substitutes
in line with the BMS act. The study recommended that; the government and other
private organizations should carry out mass education to create awareness on BMS, in
order to adopt the recommended infant and young children nutrition practices as
postulated by the World Health Organization (2017). Policies and programs should be
implemented to support breastfeeding initiatives for the purpose of upscaling
exclusive breastfeeding in Kenya. | en_US |
