Abstract：
Understanding what motivates and prevents behavioral change in farmers is a critical step in disease control in dairy cattle. A total of 101 New Zealand dairy farmers across 8 regions were randomly enrolled into a cross-sectional study to investigate farmer barriers and motivators to lameness control for cows managed 100% at pasture and the relationship between these responses and the true lameness status on farm. Trained technicians lameness scored all lactating cows on the enrolled farms on 2 occasions during one lactation. Farm-level prevalence proportions were calculated as the mean of the 2 lameness scores. Enrolled farmers were asked their perception of lameness in the current milking season and responded to 26 ordinal Likert-type items with 5 options ranging from not important at all to extremely important. The questions were grouped under 3 categories; barriers to lameness control (n = 9), impacts of lameness (n = 10), and motivators to control lameness (n = 7). The association between farmer perception of lameness and lameness prevalence was reported using linear regression. Multiple-factor analysis was conducted to identify latent variable themes within the responses. Linear discriminant analysis was used to assess whether barriers, impacts, and motivators could be used to predict farmer perception of lameness and lameness prevalence. Lameness prevalence was 0.8% greater on farms where farmers perceived lameness as a moderate or a major problem compared with farms where the farmer perceived lameness as a minor problem or not a problem. Farmers ranked all potential motivators to lameness control as important and declared few barriers to be important at preventing them from controlling lameness. Feeling sorry for lame cows and pride in a healthy herd were the most important motivators, with lack of time and skilled labor the most important barriers. The most important effects of lameness were cow-related factors such as pain and production, with farm and industry impacts of less importance. Farmers place different weightings of importance on barriers to lameness control compared with motivators for lameness control. The impacts and motivators were strongly correlated with the first dimension from the multiple-factor analysis, with only weak correlation between barriers and the first dimension. Linear discriminant analysis identified that the importance that farmers place on barriers, motivators, and impacts of lameness were poor predictors of farmers\' belief in regard to their lameness problem or actual lameness prevalence (above or below the median lameness prevalence for the study cohort). Despite relatively low lameness prevalence, many New Zealand dairy farmers believe lameness is a problem on their farm, and they rank welfare effects of lameness of high importance. To investigate how farmer behavior change can be used to manage lameness, future studies should consider theoretical social science frameworks beyond the theory of planned behavior or involve prospective interventional studies investigating farmer actions instead of beliefs.
摘要：
了解是什么激发和防止农民的行为变化是奶牛疾病控制的关键一步。来自8个地区的101名新西兰奶农被随机纳入了一项横断面研究，以调查在牧场上100％管理的奶牛控制跛行的农民障碍和动机，以及这些反应与农场真实跛行状态之间的关系。受过训练的技术人员在一次哺乳期间两次对注册农场的所有泌乳奶牛进行评分。农场级别的患病率比例计算为2次跛行得分的平均值。注册的农民被问及他们在当前挤奶季节对跛行的看法，并对26种有序的李克特型物品做出了回应，其中有5种选择，从根本不重要到极其重要。问题分为3类；控制跛行的障碍(n=9)，跛行的影响(n=10)，和控制跛行的动机(n=7)。使用线性回归报告了农民对跛行的感知与跛行患病率之间的关联。进行多因素分析以确定响应中的潜在变量主题。线性判别分析用于评估障碍，影响,动机可以用来预测农民对跛行的感知和跛行患病率。与农民认为跛行是次要问题或不是问题的农场相比，在农民认为跛行是中度或主要问题的农场，跛行患病率要高出0.8％。农民将控制跛行的所有潜在动机都列为重要因素，并宣布很少有障碍对防止他们控制跛行很重要。为跛脚的母牛感到难过和对健康的牛群感到自豪是最重要的动机，缺乏时间和熟练的劳动力是最重要的障碍。跛行最重要的影响是与奶牛相关的因素，如疼痛和生产，农业和工业影响不那么重要。与跛行控制的动机相比，农民对跛行控制的障碍的重要性权重不同。影响和激励因素与多因素分析的第一个维度密切相关，障碍和第一维度之间只有弱相关性。线性判别分析确定，农民对障碍的重视，动机，跛行的影响是农民对跛行问题或实际跛行患病率(高于或低于研究队列中的跛行患病率中位数)的信念的不良预测因子。尽管跛行患病率相对较低，许多新西兰奶农认为跛行是他们农场的一个问题，他们对跛行的福利效应进行了高度重视。为了调查农民行为改变如何用于管理跛行，未来的研究应该考虑超越计划行为理论的理论社会科学框架，或者涉及调查农民行为而不是信念的前瞻性干预研究。
