A Randomized Control Study to Evaluate the Efficacy of Safe Home Toolkit for Under-Five Children (SHT-UFC) on the Awareness of Parents Regarding the Prevention of Domestic Accidents

Background Domestic accidents among under-five children are linked to numerous factors, including child development, the physical layout and facilities at home, knowledge and practices, the behavior of parents and other family members, parents' education, overcrowding and homelessness, and the availability of safety equipment in the home. Objective The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a safe home toolkit for under-five children (SHT-UFC) on parents' awareness regarding preventing domestic accidents among under-five children, to assess the baseline knowledge and practices regarding preventing domestic accidents among parents of under-five children in the control and experimental groups, to find out the reported incidence of domestic accidents among parents of under-five children in the control and experimental groups, and to evaluate the effectiveness of a safe home toolkit among parents of under-five children. Method Simple random sampling was done in each community to recruit the participants. The sampling frame (list) of the participants was collected from the Anganwadi workers of the community. Each participant was then selected by using the computer-generated table in both groups that are the experimental and control groups. Result Knowledge and practice scores regarding SHT-UFC are positively related in the pretest and post-test, indicating that knowledge influences practices. In the pretest, Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) is higher than in the post-test because the knowledge was less and so were the practices in the pretest. In the post-test, the knowledge gained is varied yet significant, and the practices also improved. Conclusion This study revealed that a safe home toolkit for under-five children (SHT-UFC) is effective in creating awareness among parents regarding the prevention of domestic accidents.