Frequency of Unintentional Home Injuries in Children under Five Years and its Relation with Environmental Risk factors, Cairo, Egypt

Background: Unintentional home injuries are major cause of morbidity, mortality and disability in children under five years of age. Most of these injuries are preventable through increased awareness, improvements in the home environment safety and caregiver supervision. Objectives: To measure the frequency of unintentional home injuries in children less than five years, to determine its different types, to identify mothers' practices concerning first aid measures in case of occurrence of home injuries & to compare home environmental safety among home injured and non-injured children. Method: A comparative cross sectional study was conducted among mothers attending pediatric outpatient clinic, Ain Shams university hospital; during the period from February to November 2017; a sample size of 200 mothers were interviewed using structured questionnaire used to collect data about socio-demographic characteristics, frequency, types, place of home injuries, and mother's practice at the time of injury occurrence and the outcomes. Home environmental safety questionnaire adopted from American College of Preventive Medicine, 2014 and Child Injury Assessment Tool were used. Results: 61% of the participating mothers reported that their children experienced one or more home injuries during the previous year. There was a trend of increasing the proportion of mothers knowledge about first aid measures as the level of education increased. The study identified 5 out of 16 environmental risk factors which were significantly related to different types of home injuries. Conclusion & recommendation: Unintentional injuries in children under five years could be easily prevented through changing unsafe home environment and changing individual behaviors and norms.