Effectiveness of "Be SAFE Drowning Prevention and Water Safety Booklet" Intervention for Parents and Guardians.

BACKGROUND

We aimed to assess the effectiveness of the health educational booklet intervention in improving parents/guardian's knowledge on prevention of child drowning and, the perception of drowning risk and water safety practice.

METHODS

A quasi-experimental study was conducted in year 2017 in Selangor, Malaysia among 719 parents/guardians of primary school children. The parent/guardians were randomly assigned as the intervention groups and were given a health educational Be-SAFE booklet on drowning prevention and water safety. The pretest was conducted before the intervention and posttest was done one month of intervention. The data collection tool was using a validated questionnaire on knowledge, attitude and practice for drowning prevention and water safety.

RESULTS

There were 719 respondents (response rate of 89.9%) participated at baseline and 53.7% at end line (after the intervention). Significant differences found in knowledge, attitudes and practice on drowning prevention and water safety for the intervention and control groups after the intervention (<0.001). There was a significant difference in mean scores for knowledge and attitude before and after the intervention, whereas no significant findings noted for practices (<0.001).

CONCLUSION

Be SAFE booklet contributed to the increase in parents/guardian's knowledge and attitudes towards drowning prevention and water safety to prevent the risk of child drowning.