A study to assess the knowledge regarding the prevention of home accidents among the mothers of under-five children in a selected community, Mangalore

Abstract

World Health Organization (WHO) defines accident as an unexpected and an unintended event causing physical and mental injures. Children being less aware of danger are more vulnerable to accidents are one of the five leading causes of death in developing countries yearly. Accidents are main cause of death among children aged between 1-5 years old. As children are explorative in nature a number of accidents occur in this age group. Aims of the study: To assess the knowledge of mothers regarding prevention of home accidents and to find association between the knowledge score of mothers and selected demographic variables. Methodology: A descriptive study approach was adopted and structured questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge of mothers. Convenience sampling technique was used to select the 50 samples from the selected community at Mangalore. The results and Conclusion: Majority (36%) of the mothers belonged to the age group 25-31 years. Half (50%) of the samples are belonged to Muslim community, 60% of the samples were from nuclear family, most (36%) of the samples were having one under five child. Majority 34% had pre-university and 30% had secondary school education. Majority (84 %) of the respondents had moderately adequate knowledge, only few (4 %) had inadequate knowledge and only 12% had adequate knowledge on prevention of home accidents. The maximum score of knowledge score was about 19, range 16, mean 10.54, standard deviation ± 4.20 and the mean percentage was 13. The computed chi-square value chi-square value computed between the level of knowledge and selected demographic variables i.e. age (22=1.093) Religion (22=2.155), Type of family (22=2.614), number of children below 5 years of age (22=.398) educational status (23=1.840) of the mothers and whether the child met with any type of accidents (21=.368) not significant at 0.05 level of significance. Thus, it can be interpreted that there is no significant association between knowledge of mothers of under five children and selected variables. Knowledge of mothers regarding prevention of home accidents was moderately adequate. Under five home accidents are common in India and it is necessary to take adequate precautions to prevent it. Educating mothers is the best way to prevent under five accidents at home.