Home injury prevention attitude and performance: a community-based study in a designated safe community

BACKGROUND: Unintentional injuries in the home are one of the threats to childhood quality of life which is considered as a social determinant of health. Regarding mother's leading role in taking care of the children in Iranian families, the present study was conducted to investigate mothers' home-injury prevention attitude and performance and its contributing factors in Sahand safe community, East-Azerbaijan, Iran. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2017. Sampling was done using "Random Sampling method" among all mothers having at least one U-5 child and attended the health centers to receive childcare services. A valid attitude questionnaire and safety performance checklist were used for data collection. Data were analyzed by SPSS-24, using descriptive (frequency, mean, etc.) and inferential statistics (chi-square, Kruskal-Wallis). RESULTS: The mean age of mothers was 30.58 (±5.01). About 65% of the mothers had primary or secondary school education. The mean score of mothers' attitude was 72.12(±6.79). More than 58% of the mothers had an appropriate level of attitude. The mothers' injury prevention performance mean score was 66.59 (±12.85). Family’s socioeconomic status, mother's age, educational level, and job, father's job, age, and gender of the child were the contributing factors (p less than 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Most of the mothers have an appropriate level of home-injury prevention attitude but a low level of performance. Strengthening Primary Health Care system in safe communities would have a leading role in child safety promotion through increasing the mother's knowledge, attitude and performance level.