Frequency of Unintentional Home Injuries in Children under Five Years and Assessment of Mothers' First Aid Practices Following their Occurrence

Abstract

njuries are a major health problem and the most common cause of death in children under five years of age they are not accidents, they are predictable and like many diseases, preventable. The home environment is a common place for unintentional injuries among children under 5 years of age. The aim of this work was to measure the frequency of home injuries among under five year children at pediatric outpatient clinic in Ain Shams university hospital, to determine the different types and the risk factors of home injuries among children under five years, to identify mothers' practices concerning first aid measures in case of occurrence of home injuries and to compare home environmental safety among home injured and non-injured children. A structured interview questionnaire was designed and applied on (200) mothers. The questionnaire includes Section I: Sociodemographic characteristics of the studied mothers, Section II: Frequency, types, cause, place of home injuries, mother's practice at the time of injury occurrence and the outcomes, Section III: Assessment of home environmental safety. Study results revealed that the prevalence of unintentional home injury was (61.0%) over the previous 1-