Mother’s Education and her Knowledge about Home Accident Prevention among Preschool Children in Rural Area in Sharkia Governorate

Abstract

Unintentional injury remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children worldwide. The aim of this study was to describe the mother's education and her knowledge in relation to home accidents prevention in rural area in Sharkia Governorate. Study design, a cross-sectional descriptive study design was adopted in this study. The sample size was 150 mothers from Kafr Mohsen village, this number was drawn by a systematic random by visiting every 5 house in the village, those mother's were inter-viewed in their homes through home visits. Structured interview sheet was developed based on relevant literature ,it contained the following data: A) The first included socio-demographic characteristics of the families as mother's age, educational level, occupation, family size and number of children .B) The second included mother knowledge towards home accidents among children and its occurrence, types and mother's knowledge regarding causes of home accidents. C) The third included mother's practice or first aid measures she followed towards her child in case of exposure to any type of home accidents. The study result indicated that, the mean age of the mothers was (34.1±9.6) years. Regarding educational level, 33.3% had completed university education, while 25.3% of them were illiterate. Occupational status showed that more than one half of the studied mothers (58%) didn't work, while 14% worked as health care personnel. 61.3% were of middle socio economic status. More than half of the injured children (59.3%) were aged 3years or less, over half of them (58.7%) were males. The majority of the mothers (84.7%) reported that the child had suffered an injury at home. Cut/wound represented the highest percentage of home injury (37.3%) followed by fall (29.3%), burn (12%), animal bite (3.3%) then poisoning (1.3%). The study revealed that the majority of mothers (80%) heard of the term of first aid and the main source of their knowledge was from radio and television (24%) then doctors and nurses (15.3%) , part of curriculum nearly(14%) and the lowest source was from books (6.7%). More than half of the studied mothers (55.3%) did not have any knowledge about the causes of home accidents. the relation between mother's age and her knowledge regarding causes of home accidents was proved to be statistically non significant (p>0.05). mother's knowledge regarding causes of home accidents increased with increasing educational level. The relation was proved to be statistically significant (p<0.001).The conclusion of this study revealed that, well educated mothers will use the proper first aid. So there is need for parent's educational programs especially mothers with preschool children about home accidents and how to manage.