Prevalence of Unintentional Home Injuries and Awareness of Child Safety among the Parents of Inpatient Children at Sirimavo Bandaranayake Specialized Children’s Hospital Peradeniya

Abstract

Abstract: Unintentional injuries are estimated to cause 389,000 annual child deaths in Southern Asia resulting in an annual loss of 74 healthy lives per 1000 population. In Sri Lanka, childhood injuries have been reported as the fourth leading cause of child mortality under 5 years. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Sirimavo Bandaranayake Specialized Children's Hospital-Peradeniya, Sri Lanka with the aims of identifying commonly reported types of unintentional home injuries and to assess the effects of parental factors on awareness of child safety. Under 6-year-old inpatient children and their parents were included in the study. Data were collected from 99 childparent pairs within one-month period starting from 31st January 2020. An intervieweradministered questionnaire was used to collect data, followed by a simple physical examination of each child. Data were analyzed using Minitab 18 statistical software. Among the participants, majority of the children were male (64.6%). The most common type of unintentional home injury was fall injuries (75.76%). In more than one-third of cases (39.39%), mother was the person who was presented with the child at the time of injury. It was found that unemployed mothers were having significantly higher awareness on child safety and injury prevention compared to mothers who were working (p=0.005). The results of this study suggest that falls as the most commonly reported unintentional home injuries which lead to hospital admission among the children under 6 years of age. The findings also reveal that unemployed mothers were having better awareness on child safety and injury prevention.