Citation

Haddadi M, Souri H, Mehrabi Y, Alamdari SH. J. Med. Counc. Islam Repub. Iran 2007; 25(2): 170-177.

Affiliation

Faculty of Public Health, Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Medical Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Background: Although many parents believe that childhood injuries are normative events or non-reventable, inadequate supervision has been recognized as a leading contributor to child injuries in some studies. The objective of this paper is to determine the association between the level of parental supervision and childhood road traffic injuries in 6 to 9 year old children. Methods: In a case-control study, 100 children who were taken to one of Shaheed Beheshti Medical University affiliated hospitals for traffic injuries were compared with 100 matched controls who had no history of a road traffic accident in the past one year. The level of parental supervision and characteristics of mother, child and road traffic accident was collected by self-administered questionnaires and interviews according to ICD-10. Chi-squared test, Fisher�s exact test and Conditional Logistic Regression were used for data analysis. Findings: Children travel to and from their schools without adults' supervision was more common in cases (24%) than controls (10%) (P<0.01). Older children had a lower level of parental supervision for independent outdoor activities (P<0.001) and appropriate parental supervision was significantly higher in controls (24%) compared with cases (8%) (OR= 3.63, 95% CI: 1.45-9.38). Conclusion: Because of the important role of parental supervision in preventing traffic injuries among 6 to 9 year old children, in addition to environmental and legislation modifications, more attention needs to be paid to this issue.

Language: fa