Injury has now replaced disease as the biggest single cause of death in children after their first birthday. Each day child dies from preventable, unintentional injury and the medical cost of these injury is increasing remarkably. It is necessary to develope injury prevention models to explain, predict, manage, evaluate and analyze the information about accident.
The purpose of this paper is, firstly, to investigate parent´s actions regarding safety measures at home and secondly, to identify the influencing factors of parent´s safety behaviors.
The selection of such factors is guided by the theoretical framework of the Pender´s Health Promotion Model.
Method ;
The questionnaire was developed on the basis of other investigation, through pilot testing, peer review, and review by field health workers. The questionnaire was completed by 231 mothers of young children. Data was collected between April and May 2002.
Variables
Use of three different domains of safety behavior ; safety habits, supervision and perception of safety devices, were listed. Mothers were self reported on internal locus of control, mother & child relationships, and marital intimacy. Also the elements of the Health Promotion Model: perceived benefit, barrier, threat, and self-efficacy, were surveyed.
Results & discussion
The results indicate that most parents take considerable action to reduce household hazards. The constructs derived from the Model were statistically significant differences for a small part of the variables on parental behavior to reduce hazards in the home, such as age, education, economic status, self-efficacy, perceived benefit, internal locus of control.
Future studies ought to include social influences, such as expectation, perceive norms, knowledge, and child-related variables, relevant to parental safety measures in their home.
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