Knowledge and Attitudes of Female University Students in
Sharjah about Breast Feeding

Methodology
This was a cross sectional study carried out among female students of Sharjah University attending summer course 2002.

The University of Sharjah has separate buildings for men and women students. It is located in the University City, which also houses the American university of Sharjah, the Sharjah higher collages of Technology, and Sharjah policy academy. It is part of Muwaylih suburb that lies about 12 kilometers from the City Center. The university has 6 collages including: collage of Islamic Sharia, collage of Law, collage of Arts and sciences. Collage of Business and Management, collage of Engineering and collage of health and science. There are 2388 female students in the university among which 300 students were in the university hostel during the summer course.

Sample:
300 questionnaires were distributed in the hostel of Sharjah University in July 2002 during the summer course. The response rate was 65.3% (196 questionnaires). The questionnaires were kept in a room specially assigned for the students to sign in. The students were given adequate time to answer the questionnaire and return it back to the supervisor. Of the total questionnaire distributed, 34.7% did not return the questionnaire.



 Questionnaire:
Initially a pilot study was done in which the questionnaire distributed was in English. The students found it difficult to understand the medical terms in English and requested to translate it to Arabic. Translation was done and the final questionnaire in Arabic was distributed to the target group.

The questionnaire had three main parts. The first part enquired personal information, which includes name, telephone number, and date of birth, nationality, and marital status, number of children, collage, year level, religion, education and occupation of both parents.

The second part included 10 questions assessing the knowledge of the student regarding the following aspects of breast feeding. The meaning of exclusive breast feeding, the meaning of partial breast feeding, weaning, colostrums, what colostrums is good for, best time to start weaning feeds, best time to start breast feeding, frequency of breast feeding, the duration of each feed and the duration of exclusive breast feeding.

All the questions were multiple choice questions except the question on the meaning of colostrums in which the student had to write the answer.

The last part addressed the attitude of the students toward breast feeding in the future.