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Parents' Attitudes and Adherence to Unintentional Injury Prevention Measures in Ankara, Turkey
Tolga İnce1, Songül Yalçın1, Kadriye Yurdakök1
1Department of Pediatrics, Social Pediatrics Unit, Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
Insights
Parental adherence to child safety measures is low, particularly for parents of older children and those in larger families. Targeted interventions are needed for at-risk groups to reduce childhood injuries.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Pediatrics
- Injury Prevention
Background:
- Childhood unintentional injuries are a significant public health concern, contributing to pediatric mortality and morbidity.
- Research on parental factors influencing childhood injuries remains insufficient.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess parental attitudes towards and adherence to unintentional childhood injury prevention measures.
- To identify parental and demographic factors associated with adherence to safety guidelines.
Main Methods:
- A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted with 1126 parent-child pairs.
- Data collected via questionnaires on sociodemographics and parental adherence to injury prevention rules.
- Parental adherence was scored, with lower scores indicating less adherence.
Main Results:
- 13.8% of children experienced at least one serious injury requiring hospital admission.
- Despite awareness, overall parental adherence scores were low.
- Adherence decreased with child's age and family size, but increased with higher education and maternal occupation.
Conclusions:
- Parental adherence to child safety measures in Turkey is unsatisfactory.
- Intervention strategies should target parents of 5-9-year-old children, larger families, those with less education, and non-working mothers.
- Addressing these specific groups can help mitigate unintentional childhood injury risks.
Background:
Childhood unintentional injuries are perceived as a leading public health issue since they are one of the preventable causes of paediatric mortality and morbidity. Whether and how parental factors are related to childhood injury has been researched insufficiently.
Aims:
To investigate parents' attitudes to preventive measures of unintentional childhood injury, and the parental adherence to these measures.
Study Design:
Cross-sectional, descriptive study.
Methods:
The data were collected from the parents of children younger than ten years of age admitted to university hospital outpatient clinics for any reason and who agreed to be involved in the study. The first part of the questionnaire included sociodemographic profiles of participating children. Serious injuries were considered to be any injury that requires hospital admission. The second part of the questionnaire was prepared to evaluate parents' adherence to injury prevention rules. A total score calculation about the adherence of the parents to the injury prevention rules was worked out the addition of the scores of each answer given in each age group. Answers for each item given by the parents were scored as wrong (0), sometimes (1) or correct (2). The score for each item was added and the result normalized to 100 points. Only complete questionnaires were used for analysis.
Results:
A total of 1126 children and parent pairs agreed to participate in the survey. It was found that 13.8% of the participating children had experienced at least one serious injury. Although three-quarters of the parents had received information about injury prevention, the overall injury prevention scores were found to be low. As children's age increased, the total injury prevention scores of parents decreased significantly. Injury prevention scores were shown to increase significantly with high education and maternal occupation. However, scores were shown to decrease significantly with increased child age and family size.
Conclusion:
Our study shows that parental adherence to the child safety measures aimed at decreasing the unintentional injury risk of children is not satisfactory in Turkey. In particular, parents of 5-9-year-old children, big families (more than five people), parents with less than 8 years of education and non-working mothers should be the main target groups for intervention strategies according to our study results.
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