Breastfeeding support at work: A comparison between career women in the public and private sectors in Trinidad and Tobago

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate knowledge and perceptions toward breastfeeding support at work among women in public and private sectors in Trinidad and Tobago. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A purposive sampling design was used to select women employees from the public and private sectors. Employees were surveyed using a self administered 16-item structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using SPSS version 21. Independent t-test wasused to compare perceptions held by the public and private sectors. Pearson’s correlation was used to determine the relationship between the variables. The level of significance was set at the 0.05 level. RESULTS: The mean breastfeeding knowledge score for the participants was 2.31 ± 0.83, with the public sector employees having a mean score of 2.42 ± 0.759, which was statistically significant (p = 0.004) when compared to the private score of 2.14 ± 0.914. The mean readiness score 26to utilize breastfeeding support for the public and private sectors employees were 1.08 ± 0.482 and 1.14 ± 0.525, respectively; however, no significant difference was observed between the two groups (p = 0.294). The mean perception scores were 1.75 ± 0.985 for the public sector and 1.90 ± 0.950 for the private sector, with no significant difference between groups (p = 0.184). CONCLUSIONS: Participants had adequate breastfeeding knowledge and a positive attitude and perception toward breastfeeding at work. We recommend that an intervention programme be developed to increase the awareness of breastfeeding support at work so that employees and employers can become more aware of its purpose and benefits.

Measuring changes in nutritional knowledge: a nutrition education intervention among primary school children in Trinidad and Tobago

OBJECTIVE: To measure changes in nutritional knowledge among primary school children aged 6-12 years in Trinidad and Tobago. DESIGN AND METHODS: This study utilized a randomized experimental design. Eight government primary schools from two geographical regions with students aged 6-12 years from varied socioeconomic status in Trinidad participated in the study. A paired design, matched on geographical region and school population size was used to randomly assign schools to one of the four groups, i.e., (1) menu modification plus and nutrition education (MM plus NE), (2) menu modification (MM) alone, (3) nutrition education (NE) alone, and (4) control group. RESULTS: An analysis of changes in nutrition knowledge score on the 15-item pre/post tests indicated higher scores for three groups: MM plus NE, NE alone, and the control. Specifically, a statistically significant mean increase from baseline of 1.47 points for MM plus NE group, 0.61 points for NE group, and 1.19 points for the control group was found. Statistically significant differences were observed in the treatment groups receiving NE when compared to the control for level of nutrition knowledge. At post-intervention, the highest score was in the MM plus NE (p < 0.01), which was significantly higher than the control or MM. Further, mean knowledge scores for NE and MM plus NE were significantly higher than MM (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The researchers concluded that both interventions together had greater improvements in knowledge scores than the MM alone group but not compared to the control group.