Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
Accid Anal Prev. 2009 Sep;41(5):1070-4. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2009.06.010. Epub 2009 Jul 1.
Unintentional injury in the home is a leading cause of death for toddlers. The majority of injuries occur at home; parents play a significant role in injury prevention. Health-related behavior change theory suggests that behavior change is only possible if individuals (a) recognize the problem, and (b) believe they are vulnerable. This study examined these characteristics among novice parents of toddlers by investigating how well parents recognize hazards in the home and whether they believe their toddlers are vulnerable to those hazards.
Three types of participants were recruited: novice parents of toddlers ages 12-36 months, daycare employees, and pediatric healthcare workers. All participants were examined three rooms simulating a typical toddler's bedroom, a living room, and a bathroom. Participants marked any hazards they recognized with stickers. Parents completed the hazard identification task twice, once identifying hazards for all toddlers and another time identifying hazards for their child.
Participants identified less than half the hazards present in the simulated rooms; parents identified more hazards than comparison groups. Parents identified significantly fewer hazards for their own child than they identified for other children.
Although parents identified more hazards than the professionals, they failed to identify a large portion of hazards and they perceived their own children to have less vulnerability than toddlers more broadly. Results indicate that education about toddler's vulnerability to injury in the home, as well as instructing parents about what situations are hazardous, might be considered during development of toddler home injury prevention programs.
家庭中的意外伤害是幼儿死亡的主要原因。大多数伤害发生在家里；父母在预防伤害方面起着重要作用。健康相关行为改变理论表明，只有当个人（a）认识到问题，并且（b）相信自己易受伤害时，行为改变才有可能。本研究通过调查新手父母对家庭中危险的认识程度，以及他们是否认为自己的孩子容易受到这些危险的影响，来研究幼儿父母的这些特征。
招募了三种类型的参与者：12-36 个月大幼儿的新手父母、日托员工和儿科保健工作者。所有参与者都检查了三个模拟典型幼儿卧室、客厅和浴室的房间。参与者用贴纸标记他们识别出的任何危险。父母两次完成危险识别任务，一次识别所有幼儿的危险，另一次识别自己孩子的危险。
参与者识别出的危险不到模拟房间中存在危险的一半；父母比对照组识别出的危险更多。父母识别出的自己孩子的危险明显少于他们识别出的其他孩子的危险。
尽管父母比专业人员识别出了更多的危险，但他们仍未能识别出大部分危险，并且他们认为自己的孩子比一般幼儿的脆弱性更小。结果表明，在制定幼儿家庭伤害预防计划时，可以考虑对家长进行有关幼儿在家中受伤易感性的教育，以及指导家长了解哪些情况是危险的。
