Effect of Breastfeeding Education Delivered Through Motivational Interviewing on Breastfeeding Motivation, Self-Efficacy, and Maternal Bonding in Mothers Giving Vaginal Birth: Randomized, Controlled Trial

Objectives: This study examined the effect of breastfeeding education using the motivational interviewing technique on breastfeeding motivation, self-efficacy, and mother–infant bonding in mothers who gave birth vaginally. Methods: This randomized, controlled trial included 80 primiparous mothers. The experimental group received breastfeeding education with the motivational interviewing technique at four time points. Data were collected using Maternal Descriptive Information Form (MDIF), the Primiparous Breastfeeding Motivation Scale (PBMS), the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale (BSES), the Mother–Infant Bonding Scale (MIBS), and the Motivational Interviewing Importance and Confidence-Efficacy Rating Scale. Data were collected at three time points: immediately before training (pretest), 15 days following completion of the training (post-test), and 4 weeks thereafter (follow-up). Data were evaluated using Student’s t test, Mann–Whitney U test, analysis of variance, Friedman variance test, and intention-to-treat analysis. Results: In the post-test and follow-up evaluations, the experimental group had significantly higher mean scores than the control group in the “Value ascribed to breastfeeding” (p < 0.001 and p = 0.004, respectively) and “Midwife support” (p < 0.001 and p = 0.003, respectively) subdimensions of the PBMS as well as in “Motivational interviewing importance” (p < 0.005) and “Confidence-efficacy rating scale” (p < 0.001). During the follow-up period, the experimental group also showed significantly higher scores in the “Self-efficacy” subdimension (p < 0.001) and total mean scores of the BSES (p = 0.033) and MIBS (p = 0.002) than the control group. However, the “Expectation of success” subdimension score of the PBMS was not significant (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Breastfeeding education using the motivational interviewing technique enhances breastfeeding motivation (including values ascribed to breastfeeding, self-efficacy, and midwife support), breastfeeding self-efficacy, mother–infant bonding, and the importance and confidence-efficacy levels in breastfeeding. © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).