Development of the Breastfeeding Personal Efficacy Beliefs Inventory: a measure of women's confidence about breastfeeding.

The newly developed Breastfeeding Personal Efficacy Beliefs Inventory (BPEBI) was tested as a measure of breastfeeding confidence to support breastfeeding promotion research. Participants were 479 volunteers who returned the BPEBI after it was mailed to 700 randomly selected female students enrolled at a land grant university in a predominately White Appalachian state. Internal consistency reliability was .89. Five factors emerged during factor analysis (eigenvalue = 7.3 to 1.2, variance explained = 53%) consistent with the conceptual basis of the inventory. Further reliability and validity assessments were recommended with ethnically and academically heterogeneous women with different breastfeeding experience.