Introduction:

In spite of the continuous dissemination and promotion of the benefits of maintaining adequate breastfeeding, there is still, in many cases, a lack of knowledge about its immunitary contributions.

Objective:

To evaluate the effect of a course on the modification of breastfeeding knowledge in Cuban students of medical sciences.

Methods:

A nonobservational, quasiexperimental, before-and-after educational intervention study without control group was carried out. The study universe consisted of 250 Cuban students of medical sciences who, using the Google Forms link, enrolled in a pre-congress course about breastfeeding and its importance for immunity. An intentional sample of 225 students was chosen, who answered the two knowledge questionnaires applied and agreed to participate in the research. The research was carried out in four stages: enrollment, diagnosis, intervention and evaluation. The studied variables were university, academic year and major, general breastfeeding knowledge, specific knowledge about breastfeeding and neonatal nutrition, consequences of breastfeeding abandonment, and opinion about the importance of breastfeeding. Descriptive statistics and McNemar's test were used to determine the effectiveness of the intervention.

Results:

Students from Ciego de Avila and the medical major predominated, mainly from the second and third academic years, apart from inadequate knowledge before the intervention. Later on, a modification in these indicators was shown.

Conclusions:

The application of the educational intervention on the importance of breastfeeding showed effectiveness with respect to an increased knowledge about the topic.

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