Measuring behaviours for escaping from house fires: use of latent variable models to summarise multiple behaviours.

G B Ploubidis,P Edwards,D Kendrick

doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1769-5

G B Ploubidis, P Edwards + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-015-1769-5

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Abstract

BackgroundThis paper reports the development and testing of a construct measuring parental fire safety behaviours for planning escape from a house fire.MethodsLatent variable modelling of data on parental-reported fire safety behaviours and plans for escaping from a house fire and multivariable logistic regression to quantify the association between groups defined by the latent variable modelling and parental-report of having a plan for escaping from a house fire. Data comes from 1112 participants in a cluster randomised controlled trial set in children’s centres in 4 study centres in the UK.ResultsA two class model provided the best fit to the data, combining responses to five fire safety planning behaviours. The first group (‘more behaviours for escaping from a house fire’) comprised 86 % of participants who were most likely to have a torch, be aware of how their smoke alarm sounds, to have external door and window keys accessible, and exits clear. The second group (‘fewer behaviours for escaping from a house fire’) comprised 14 % of participants who were less likely to report these five behaviours. After adjusting for potential confounders, participants allocated to the ‘more behaviours for escaping from a house fire group were 2.5 times more likely to report having an escape plan (OR 2.48; 95 % CI 1.59–3.86) than those in the “fewer behaviours for escaping from a house fire” group.ConclusionsMultiple fire safety behaviour questions can be combined into a single binary summary measure of fire safety behaviours for escaping from a house fire. Our findings will be useful to future studies wishing to use a single measure of fire safety planning behaviour as measures of outcome or exposure.Trial registration number: NCT 01452191. Date of registration 13/10/2011

Highlights

This paper reports the development and testing of a construct measuring parental fire safety behaviours for planning escape from a house fire
Meta-analysis of these studies found home safety education was effective in increasing the proportion of families with a plan for escaping from a house fire [12], but this proportion remained relatively low post intervention, ranging across studies from 30 % [10] to 63 % [11]
Latent variable modelling has been recognized as a valuable tool in epidemiological research [15] and numerous studies have employed latent variables to reduce a large number of observations and derive meaningful summaries

Summary

Introduction

This paper reports the development and testing of a construct measuring parental fire safety behaviours for planning escape from a house fire. While most fire-related deaths occur in low and middle-income countries [1], they remain an important public health problem in high income countries. Few published studies have evaluated the impact of interventions promoting planning for escaping from a house fire. A recent systematic review found only four studies evaluating home safety interventions that reported having or practising a plan for escaping from a house fire as an outcome measure [8,9,10,11]. Meta-analysis of these studies found home safety education was effective in increasing the proportion of families with a plan for escaping from a house fire [12], but this proportion remained relatively low post intervention, ranging across studies from 30 % [10] to 63 % [11]. None of the studies defined what a plan for escaping from a house fire consisted of, and all used single item questions to assess whether the family had, or had practised, a plan

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