Article Text
Abstract
Background Unintentional injuries cause a high number of child death across the globe. To reduce the child injury risk behavior Center for Injury Prevention and Research Bangladesh collaborated with Royale National Lifeboat Institution and Sesame Workshop Bangladesh, implemented the safe play project and researched to measure the changes in injury knowledge of Anchal, a child supervision centre, children in southern Bangladesh.
Aims The study aimed to assess the impact of introducing early learning materials related to injuries improving injury prevention knowledge of children 1 to 5 years old.
Methods The study applied a randomized cluster trial. 341 intervention and 355 control children aged between 3 and 5 years and their caregivers were the participants. Data was collected after a one-year intervention using injury learning materials. The average mean percentage scores of the injury knowledge domains were calculated by accumulating all the subtasks scores.
Results Intervention children scored significantly higher in the major unintentional injury knowledge areas such as road traffic (Intervention=17.2%, Control=10.0%), drowning (Intervention=42.0%, Control=34.7%), animal bite (Intervention=55.9%, Control=44.7%), poison (Intervention=14.4%, Control=3.7%), compared to control group. Further analysis is ongoing to determine whether the groups’ scores obtained at the baseline and end-line demonstrated a significant improvement in children’s injury knowledge as a result of the exposed intervention
Conclusion Children from the intervention group exhibited an increased level of awareness and knowledge on injury risks behaviors and prevention actions more than the control group children.
Learning outcomes The evidence indicated the necessity of integrated and innovative approaches into community-based, low resourced child care providers to reduce children’s unintentional injury deaths targeting community children and research initiatives for better-informed policy formation and service delivery.