Community-Based Study on Family-Related Contributory Factors for Childhood Unintentional Injuries in an Urban Setting of Sri Lanka

Abstract

A community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among children aged 1 to 4 years residing in an urban setting of Sri Lanka to assess the incidence and associated family-related factors of unintentional injuries. A total of 458 children were recruited using simple random sampling technique, giving a response rate of 91.6%. The incidence of unintentional injuries that needed medical attention during the study period of 3 months was 28.1 per 100 children (95% CI = 19.46-36.74). The factors that were significantly associated with the occurrence of unintentional injuries among children are low monthly income of the family ( P = .045), low social support to the mother of index child ( P = .022), nonauthoritative type of parenting of the mother of index child ( P = .039), cared by person other than mother during day time ( P = .002), frequent arguments between parents ( P = .004), and frequent alcohol consumption of father ( P = .001).