Children's perspectives on injury and close-call experiences: sex differences in injury-outcome processes.

Compared boy's and girls' self-reports of injuries and close calls, using a structured telephone interview that was conducted each of 14 days to obtain reports of antecedent events (past memories of similar injuries, immediate injury context), attributions of blame (own behavior, other's behavior, bad luck), ratings of injury severity, telling parents about injuries, and the factors that influence children's learning to avoid injury-risk behaviors. In comparison to girls, boys reported more injuries and close calls, were more likely to be with peers when injured, were more likely to repeat behaviors that had resulted in prior injuries, were more likely to erroneously attribute injuries to bad luck, were more likely to rate injuries as low in severity, and were less likely to tell their parents about these events.