Knowledge and attitude regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries among mothers of under-five children in Paediatrics units at Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry

Abstract

Introduction: Children are like butterflies. They really love to explore the living surroundings they live. The environment they live has many potential hazards. Unintentional injuries are mainly responsible for many injury and death in children especially under five children. But most of the potential risks can be avoided if the parents of under five children are aware of the risk factors in their surroundings and children should be properly taken care by their parents. There are many causes of injury and death among children but most of the leading causes are Drowning, Falling, Burns, Choking and Poisoning. Educating and giving awareness to parents about the preventive measures which should be adopted to prevent these injuries can save the children especially under five thereby reducing the mortality rate upto 90 percentage. Statement of Problem: A Study to Assess the level of Knowledge and Attitude regarding Home safety measures on unintentional injuries among mothers of under- five children at Paediatric units, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry. Objectives: 1. To assess the level of knowledge and attitude regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries among mothers of under five children. 2. To find out the association between level of knowledge and attitude regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries among mothers of under five children with selected demographic variables. Methodology: Data was collected over a period of one week in march 2020.Exploratory research approach is used in this study and descriptive research design is used to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries among mothers of under five children. Mothers of under five children who fulfil inclusion criteria were selected using Purposive Sampling Technique and the sample size is 67. Data was collected using structured questionnaire. The data collected will be analysed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Fisherman exact test was used to test the association between level of knowledge regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries among mothers of under five children with selected demographic variables. Results: In the present study, level of knowledge of mothers of under five children regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries revealed that 21(31.34%) were having inadequate knowledge, 37(55.22%) mothers were having moderately adequate knowledge, 9 (13.43%) mothers were having adequate knowledge regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries. The level of attitude of mothers of under five children regarding home safety measures revealed that 67(100%) of the mothers were having favourable attitude regarding home safety measures on unintentional injuries. Conclusion: The researchers gave health education leaflets to all the mothers of under-five children in order to improve the knowledge of the mother so that risks of unintentional injury can be reduced thereby reducing mortality rate of under five children.