Childhood burn injuries are a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and a major public health concern. Children younger than five years of age are more at risk. Majority of burn incidents occur as accidents within the home. Poor parental burn hazard perception and knowledge of burns first aid have been reported. This PhD project aimed to determine whether a targeted preventative parenting intervention ‘Toddler-safe’ improved parental burns safety and first aid knowledge and behaviour in the home, and reduced the risk of future childhood burns. A systematic review of the literature was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of parenting interventions at preventing unintentional injuries in pre-school children. The review found that parenting interventions that provided home visitation, education, and free/discounted safety devices, delivered on a one-to-one basis, during the perinatal or early postnatal period, were associated with significantly fewer childhood injuries, and improvements in parental safety knowledge and practices. However, there was a lack of prevention intervention research specifically for burn injuries in children under the age of five. Findings from the systematic review informed the design and methodology of the Toddler-Safe study. Toddler-Safe was conducted as a randomised controlled trial. One hundred and fifty six parents allocated to the intervention arm of the trial received an intervention consisting of a burns safety and first aid video, and an injury safety leaflet. An equal number of controls received only the injury safety leaflet. The study was evaluated using pre- and post-test questionnaires. Outcome measures included first aid knowledge and burns prevention, knowledge, attitude, and practices; and parent-reported or medically attended injuries. Just over half of the study participants were available for follow-up at six months. Non-responders were found to be younger and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Toddler-Safe was not effective at improving parental burns prevention and first aid knowledge, attitudes, and practices at ii follow-up. Burn injuries were reported in four children living with participating families. Participant attrition and omission of key knowledge and attitude topics from the intervention were major limitations of the study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:716038 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Okolie, Chukwudi |
| Publisher | Cardiff University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://orca.cf.ac.uk/100566/ |
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