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Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Dog bites represent a significant threat to child health. Theory-driven interventions scalable for broad dissemination are sparse. A website was developed to teach children dog safety via increased knowledge, improved cognitive skills in relevant domains, and increased perception of vulnerability to...

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Autores principales: Schwebel, David C., Li, Peng, McClure, Leslie A., Severson, Joan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5201339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27918466
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13121198
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author Schwebel, David C.
Li, Peng
McClure, Leslie A.
Severson, Joan
author_facet Schwebel, David C.
Li, Peng
McClure, Leslie A.
Severson, Joan
author_sort Schwebel, David C.
collection PubMed
description Dog bites represent a significant threat to child health. Theory-driven interventions scalable for broad dissemination are sparse. A website was developed to teach children dog safety via increased knowledge, improved cognitive skills in relevant domains, and increased perception of vulnerability to bites. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 69 children aged 4–5 randomly assigned to use the dog safety website or a control transportation safety website for ~3 weeks. Assessment of dog safety knowledge and behavior plus skill in three relevant cognitive constructs (impulse control, noticing details, and perspective-taking) was conducted both at baseline and following website use. The dog safety website incorporated interactive games, instructional videos including testimonials, a motivational rewards system, and messaging to parents concerning child lessons. Our results showed that about two-thirds of the intervention sample was not adherent to website use at home, so both intent-to-treat and per-protocol analyses were conducted. Intent-to-treat analyses yielded mostly null results. Per-protocol analyses suggested children compliant to the intervention protocol scored higher on knowledge and recognition of safe behavior with dogs following the intervention compared to the control group. Adherent children also had improved scores post-intervention on the cognitive skill of noticing details compared to the control group. We concluded that young children’s immature cognition can lead to dog bites. Interactive eHealth training on websites shows potential to teach children relevant cognitive and safety skills to reduce risk. Compliance to website use is a challenge, and some relevant cognitive skills (e.g., noticing details) may be more amenable to computer-based training than others (e.g., impulse control).
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spelling pubmed-52013392016-12-30 Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial Schwebel, David C. Li, Peng McClure, Leslie A. Severson, Joan Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Dog bites represent a significant threat to child health. Theory-driven interventions scalable for broad dissemination are sparse. A website was developed to teach children dog safety via increased knowledge, improved cognitive skills in relevant domains, and increased perception of vulnerability to bites. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 69 children aged 4–5 randomly assigned to use the dog safety website or a control transportation safety website for ~3 weeks. Assessment of dog safety knowledge and behavior plus skill in three relevant cognitive constructs (impulse control, noticing details, and perspective-taking) was conducted both at baseline and following website use. The dog safety website incorporated interactive games, instructional videos including testimonials, a motivational rewards system, and messaging to parents concerning child lessons. Our results showed that about two-thirds of the intervention sample was not adherent to website use at home, so both intent-to-treat and per-protocol analyses were conducted. Intent-to-treat analyses yielded mostly null results. Per-protocol analyses suggested children compliant to the intervention protocol scored higher on knowledge and recognition of safe behavior with dogs following the intervention compared to the control group. Adherent children also had improved scores post-intervention on the cognitive skill of noticing details compared to the control group. We concluded that young children’s immature cognition can lead to dog bites. Interactive eHealth training on websites shows potential to teach children relevant cognitive and safety skills to reduce risk. Compliance to website use is a challenge, and some relevant cognitive skills (e.g., noticing details) may be more amenable to computer-based training than others (e.g., impulse control). MDPI 2016-12-02 2016-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5201339/ /pubmed/27918466 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13121198 Text en © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Schwebel, David C.
Li, Peng
McClure, Leslie A.
Severson, Joan
Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
title Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
title_full Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
title_fullStr Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
title_short Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
title_sort evaluating a website to teach children safety with dogs: a randomized controlled trial
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5201339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27918466
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13121198
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