A Systematic Review of the Correlation Between Marital Relationship and Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy, and Duration of Breastfeeding

Background: Breastfeeding as an important key to sustainable development strategies is the best nutrition for ensuring healthy growth and development in the first 1,000 days of life. Objective: The current systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to evaluate the correlation between marital relationship satisfaction and breastfeeding self-efficacy and duration of breastfeeding. Method: A systematical search was carried out in main electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, Embase, ProQuest, and Web of Science) and gray literature until June 2022. The study's risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa risk-of-bias tool. Publication bias was evaluated using a funnel plot, and Begg's and Egger's tests. The degree of heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 test. To estimate common effect size r coefficient (r) and confidence intervals (95% CIs), random-effect models were fitted, and the results were presented using forest plots. Results: In total, 13 studies with 5,843 subjects were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, the pool estimates show a positive correlation between marital relationship satisfaction, and breastfeeding self-efficacy (r = 0.27, 95% CI (0.09-0.50), p = 0.024), but this relationship was not found in the term of breastfeeding duration (r = 0.11, 95% CI [-0.01 to 0.23], p = 0.079). The heterogeneity of studies was high (I2 = 95.2%) Conclusion: Our finding confirms a positive and moderate level of correlation between marital relationship satisfaction and breastfeeding self-efficacy. It is suggested to conduct more studies to reach appropriate conclusions regarding marital relationship satisfaction and breastfeeding duration.