Preventing unintentional injuries in children: the parents’ beliefs matters (CHILD Vigilance)

Abstract The CHILD Vigilance project is a European study supported by the Injury Prevention & Safety Promotion Section of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA INJ) and aims at assessing parenting knowledge and attitudes that are relevant to supervision and risk taking in children. For children the majority of these injuries occur in or around the home when their safety is the responsibility of a parent or other caregiver. The study aims contribute to the epidemiological knowledge of injuries through the study of the perceptions of parents and caregivers of children and adolescents. A descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study was developed under the CHILD Vigilance project, developed at European level within the scope of the Injury Prevention & Safety Promotion Section of the European Public Health Association. The information was collected by survey, from parents’ associations and schools in the EU countries represented in the EUPHA INJ Section. A total of 916 valid responses were obtained, involving 1229 children (51,4% male; mean age 7,8 years). Falls were perceived as the most common type of unintentional injuries in pre-schoolers and school-age children (47,8% in Greece; 63,5% in Portugal; 74,8% in Lithuania). However it was found differences in these countries as to the most common type of injury in adolescents, pointing out road traffic crashes (41.2% in Greece vs 39.5% in Portugal) and poisonings in Lithuania (38,1%). Some differences were also observed between these countries as to the most common causes of death. In Greece and Lithuania diseases were reported the main cause in the pre-schoolers (62,5%; 35,1%) and in primary education (55,1%; 29,7%), being injuries pointed as the most frequent cause only in the oldest. The study emphasizes the need to invest in the identification of appropriate determinants of child unintentional injuries and harmonised injury outcomes across global initiatives. Key messages • The lack of data regarding to parents’ knowledge on injury prevention involving children highlight the need to conduct this type of studies. • The need for adequate epidemiological data on the burden of child injuries and validated tools to accurately measure injuries.