Compliance with child accident precautions by child health nurses

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which parents follow advice from child health nurses about child accident prevention. The study was performed in one of the 10 districts in the city of Malmö, Sweden. Parents to 90, 10-month old children in southern Sweden participated. These parents completed a questionnaire that prompted responses related to parents' background and socio-economic factors as well as questions about any precautions they have taken to decrease hazards to children in their home. Odds ratios, confidence intervals and multiple logistic regression analysis was performed. The results indicated that lower educated parents (i.e. those with 12 years' education or less) and foreign-born parents complied with a significantly lower level. These results support the need to increase efforts in child accident prevention work. It is important for child health nurses to concentrate their efforts on foreign parents and on less educated parents. Information should be relayed regularly to these parents in a motivational way, in order to decrease risks of child accidents at home.