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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
Measuring the Functional Abilities of Children Aged 3-6 Years Old with Observational Methods and Computer Tools
Published on: June 20, 2020
Risk assessment tools for 0-6 years old children unintentional injuries: A systematic literature analysis
Yang Yuan1, Li Li2, Guoqing Hu3
1Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha 410013, China. 236911003@csu.edu.cn.
Insights
No single tool fully assesses all unintentional injury risks in young children. Healthcare providers should choose tools carefully and advocate for developing and validating new ones, especially for Chinese populations.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric injury prevention
- Public health research
- Child safety assessment
Background:
- Unintentional injuries are a leading cause of death in children and adolescents.
- Existing risk assessment tools lack global standardization.
- There is a need to evaluate tools for children aged 0-6 years.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically characterize existing unintentional injury risk assessment tools for children aged 0-6 years.
- To inform scientific tool selection and optimization.
- To identify gaps in current assessment tools.
Main Methods:
- Systematic literature search up to January 2025 in CNKI, Wanfang, PubMed, and Web of Science.
- Information extraction on tool features, format, scoring, dimensions, reliability, validity, and injury types.
- Analysis of 50 identified risk assessment tools.
Main Results:
- 50 tools were identified; 35 assessed multiple injury types.
- Caregiver self-report was the most common assessment format (38 tools).
- Most tools covered knowledge, attitude, behavior, and environment, but few assessed all four dimensions or had clear scoring/risk criteria. Only 22 tools had reliability/validity data, and few English tools were translated into Chinese.
Conclusions:
- No current tool comprehensively assesses all major unintentional injury types for children under six.
- Practitioners should select tools based on specific needs.
- Improvements are needed, including translation and validation of tools, and development of quantitative scoring methods for underrepresented injury types in China.
Objectives:
Injuries are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. Although numerous risk assessment tools for unintentional injuries in children have been developed and published both domestically and internationally, there is currently no global consensus on standardized use. This study aims to systematically characterize existing unintentional injury risk assessment tools for children aged 0-6 years, with the goal of informing scientific tool selection and optimization.
Methods:
Relevant literature published up to January 2025 was retrieved from CNKI, Wanfang, PubMed, and Web of Science. An information extraction form was developed to gather data on the basic features of each assessment tool, assessment format, scoring methods and criteria, dimensions assessed, reliability and validity, and types of unintentional injuries covered.
Results:
A total of 50 risk assessment tools for unintentional injuries among children aged 0-6 years were included. Among them, 35 tools assessed two or more types of unintentional injuries. Regarding assessment format, 38 tools relied on caregiver self-report, 2 on investigator interviews, 3 on direct observation by investigators, and 7 used multiple methods. The tools covered four major dimensions: knowledge, attitude, behavior, and environment. Eleven tools covered 3 dimensions, while only one tool addressed all 4. Nineteen tools provided clear scoring methods, 14 included criteria for risk determination, and only 11 had both scoring methods and risk criteria. Twenty-eight tools lacked both. Twenty-two tools had been evaluated for reliability and/or validity. Among the 25 English-language tools, only 3 had been translated into Chinese.
Conclusions:
Currently, no existing tool comprehensively assesses all major types of unintentional injuries for children under six years of age. It is recommended that practitioners select appropriate tools based on specific needs. In addition, improvements should be pursued, such as translating and validating English-language tools, developing quantitative scoring methods and criteria for tools tailored to Chinese children for important but underrepresented injury types (e.g., road traffic injuries, drowning).
