Anticipatory Guidance in Childhood Safety: How do Parents Fare? A Survey from a Tertiary Hospital

Unintentional home injuries are a major cause for childhood morbidity and mortality.

Aims and Objective: To find the KAP among mothers about common home injuries and methods to prevent them. To assess how safe the houses of the study population is.

Materials and Methods: 200 mothers attending the paediatric OPD of a tertiary care hospital in a sub-urban area of South India were enrolled. They were interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Details regarding socio-demographic aspects, knowledge, attitude and practices about common household accidents and ways to prevent were asked. The safety aspects of their homes were also noted down. The collected data were analysed with sigma plot 13(system software, USA). In the above statistical tools the probability value <0.05 was considered as significant.

Result: The mean age of mother was 28.82 ± 4.93 years and age at marriage, 21.7 ± 3.55 years. 54% belonged to lower middle class and nearly 20% each in upper lower and upper middle class. Fall from height, Road traffic accidents followed by electrical injuries were the commonest accidents known by mothers. Socioeconomic status and educational levels had statistical correlation with few of the variables.

Conclusion: Knowledge about home accidents is poor in the study population. Most of the houses are not child safe. Parent education about home injuries and training on first aid should be part of newborn follow up.