Knowledge and attitude of children safety at home among population in Saudi Arabia

Unintentional injury to children at home is a public health problem and it is a significant cause of death and disabilities. It accounts for 40% of all child deaths. To our knowledge, there have been no similar studies done on Arabic countries that show the prevalence of home injuries among children.

We aimed to assess the adults' knowledge and attitude toward child safety at home in Saudi Arabia.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,301 participants, during August 2017, who are older than 18 years old and have at least one child in the family. Data were collected by an online questionnaire assessing the believes, knowledge, and behavior of the participants. Analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS Software version 21, using descriptive analysis, t-test, and one-way ANOVA.

It was found that gender, age, marital status, employment status, and the type of accommodation played key roles in the awareness of children safety at home, the study showed that females and age group above 25, married, employees, and those who lived in flats had more awareness than the other groups, respectively.

The majority of the population had good awareness about children's safety at home. Despite the good level of awareness, more public health education is recommended to improve the awareness and the prevention methods of these injuries.