Parents’ perspectives on preschool children’s in-home falls: implications for injury prevention

ABSTRACT

Falls from a height are a leading cause of injury for children globally, yet few effective prevention strategies have been developed. For young children, serious falls occur mostly in the home, which implicates caregivers’ safety practices in prevention. This qualitative study examined parents’ views about this issue. Parents of 1 through 4 year olds participated in focus groups and provided opinions about in-home falls, including preventability, facilitators and barriers to falls’ prevention, and strategies for prevention. Results revealed that parents were surprised about the frequency of serious falls affecting young children. They recognized that children falling from heights (stairs and off furniture) posed risk of head injury, but varied in beliefs about preventability of falls. They emphasized teaching safe practices (stairs) and enforcing rules (prevent hazardous actions on furniture), but did not use or favor stair gates. Barriers to prevention included wanting children to be active and independent and believing children learn risk avoidance from injury experiences. Parents sought suggestions for prevention approaches that are sensitive to their individual needs and allow them to make personal choices, rather than prescriptive strategies about using stair gates or supervising constantly.

KEYWORDS:

• In-home falls
• preschool children
• parent opinions
• prevention

Acknowledgments

The Central West Injury Prevention Practitioners’ Network – Child Falls Prevention Working Group was comprised: City of Hamilton, Public Health Services (Jaclyn Degelder and Julie Hamilton); Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit (Karin Marks); Niagara Region Public Health (Christina Bradley, Vanessa Levay); and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (Jennifer MacLeod, Liz Robson). The authors thank the parents for their participation. Barbara A. Morrongiello was supported by a Canada Research Chair Award, and this research was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.