Mothers' awareness towards child injuries and injury prevention at home: an intervention study.

BACKGROUND: Most injuries to young children happen in the home. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate if extended individual information to mothers' related to injury to children in the home and possible preventative actions has any effect on their awareness of the problem and if Sense of Coherence has an influence. METHODS: This was a quasi-experimental designed intervention study with a comparison group. Extended individual information with empowerment as the approach was used. RESULTS: Ninety-nine mothers of children under the age of 7 months participate. A questionnaire with sociodemographic data and questions regarding awareness towards prevention was used. Mothers who took part in the intervention significantly increased their awareness of the fact that child injuries take place at home when compared with the mothers in the comparison group, [OR 2.3, CI 1.3-4.3]. However, no significant improvement of awareness towards prevention was noted, neither any association to the mothers' SOC-scores. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the intervention had a positive effect on mothers' awareness towards the fact that child injuries are taking place at home, but it did not increase the mothers' awareness towards prevention of child injury.

Precautions taken by mothers to prevent burn and scald injuries to young children at home: an intervention study.

AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent individual-based extended information given to mothers from city parts of low education can improve precautions taken by them to prevent burn and scald injuries involving young children in the home and further to compare the results with a group of mothers who had not received extended information. METHODS: This intervention study, with a comparison group, has a quasi-experimental design. Individual-based information, with an empowerment approach, was given to a group of mothers living in two separate areas of a city in southern Sweden with a low level of education. In total, 99 mothers of children under the age of 7 months participated. The mothers were selected through the local child healthcare authorities. Observations were made and bivariate analyses were established. RESULTS: The results showed that the intervention had a significant impact on improving the precautions the participating mothers introduced to protect their children against burn and scald injuries in the home and further, in relation to a comparison group. CONCLUSIONS: Through empowerment, workshops, and home visits aimed to increase their consciousness and knowledge, the participating mothers' precautions taken against child injuries in the home improved. It is of great importance that a framework for considering the problem of burn and scald injuries to children is presented from a preventive perspective which, in combination with evidence-based interventions, may enable the creation of injury prevention programmes for implementation by the community health care.