Effect of educating mothers on injury prevention among children aged <5 years using the Health Belief Model: a...

To assess the effect of the Health Belief Model (HBM) on the education of mothers for promoting safety and preventing injury among children aged <5 years.

Randomized controlled trial.

This study was conducted in Hamadan City, West Iran in 2012. One hundred and twenty mothers participated in this study, divided into intervention and control groups (60 mothers in each group). The intervention group participated in an educational programme consisting of four 1-hour sessions twice per week. The education programme was based on the HBM. The participants of both groups were evaluated before the intervention and two months after the intervention using a questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were tested with a pilot study. The questionnaire consisted of three parts: demographic characteristics; knowledge, practices and HBM constructs (perceived sensitivity, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action and self-efficacy); and history of recent injuries to the child. Student's t-test was used to compare the mean differences, and P < 0.05 was considered to indicate significance.

None of the 120 participants dropped out of the study. The mean differences in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, self-efficacy and practices after the intervention, between the two groups, were 3.98, 3.57, 3.97, 1.57, -7.08, 0.82, 2.95 and 2.47, respectively. All differences were statistically significant (P = 0.001).

Educational programmes based on the HBM can be used as an effective approach in planning and developing preventive programmes for injury prevention and safety promotion in children aged <5 years.