Study of some factors, influencing home accidents in children, requiring hospitalization

Abstract

Two hundred children admitted at the Lady Ridgeway hospital after a home accident were compared with a control group of 200 children, admitted at the same hospital for a cause other than an injury. The socio demographic characteristics, physical and psychosocial environment of the child and child care arrangements were compared between the two groups. There was no significant difference between the socio - demographic characteristics of the parents among the cases and controls. Increased risk in the physical environment was not found in the cases compared to controls. When the psycho-social environment was considered ,more accident cases had serious physical illness of the father (p.01), negative attitudes of the mothers towards the child and abnormal behavior of the child (p .05) than the control children. Mothers of the cases spent less time at home than the controls (p .0001) and the child care arrangements were less satisfactory. The commonest method of injury was falls (43.5 per cent) with a variety of other injuries. According to this study the most important risk factors influencing home accidents in children are inadequate birth spacing, and insufficient time spent by the mother at home and the negative attitude of the mother towards the child. All these factors highlight the importance of the quality of child care as a contributory factor towards h me accidents