BMJ  2005;330:178 (22 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.38309.664444.8F (published 16 December 2004)

Primary care

Providing child safety equipment to prevent injuries: randomised controlled trial

¹ Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Nursing, University of Nottingham, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2HA, ² Division of Primary Care, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, ³ Rushcliffe Primary Care Trust, Nottingham NG2 6BT, ⁴ Nottingham Health Informatics Service, Nottingham City Primary Care Trust, Nottingham NG1 6GN

Objective To assess the effectiveness of safety advice and safety equipment in reducing unintentional injuries for families with children aged under 5 years and living in deprived areas.

Design Randomised controlled trial.

Setting 47 general practices in Nottingham.

Participants 3428 families with children under 5.

Intervention A standardised safety consultation and provision of free and fitted stair gates, fire guards, smoke alarms, cupboard locks, and window locks.

Main outcome measures Primary outcome measures were whether a child in the family had at least one injury that required medical attendance and rates of attendance in primary and secondary care and of hospital admission for injury over a two year period. Secondary outcome measures included possession of safety equipment and safety practices.

Results No significant difference was found in the proportion of families in which a child had a medically attended injury (odds ratio 1.14, 95% confidence interval 0.98 to 1.50) or in the rates of attendance in secondary care (incidence rate ratio 1.02, 0.90 to 1.13) or admission to hospital (1.02, 0.70 to 1.48). However, children in the intervention arm had a significantly higher attendance rate for injuries in primary care (1.37, 1.11 to 1.70, P = 0.003). At both one and two years' follow up, families in the intervention arm were significantly more likely to have a range of safety practices, but absolute differences in the percentages were relatively small.

Conclusions The intervention resulted in significant improvements in safety practices for up to two years but did not reduce injuries that necessitated medical attendance. Although equipment was provided and fitted free of charge, the observed changes in safety practices may not have been large enough to affect injury rates.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Articles

Listen to the data when results are not significant

Catherine E Hewitt, Natasha Mitchell, and David J Torgerson
BMJ 2008 336: 23-25. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Preventive effect of child safety equipment is debatable
BMJ 2005 330: 0. [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Kendrick, D, Smith, S, Sutton, A J, Mulvaney, C, Watson, M, Coupland, C, Mason-Jones, A (2009). The effect of education and home safety equipment on childhood thermal injury prevention: meta-analysis and meta-regression. Inj. Prev. 15: 197-204 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Kendrick, D., Mulvaney, C., Watson, M. (2009). Does targeting injury prevention towards families in disadvantaged areas reduce inequalities in safety practices?. Health Educ Res 24: 32-41 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Patel, B, Groom, L, Prasad, V, Kendrick, D (2008). Parental poison prevention practices and their relationship with perceived toxicity: cross-sectional study. Inj. Prev. 14: 389-395 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Beirens, T. M. J., Brug, J., van Beeck, E. F., Dekker, R., den Hertog, P., Raat, H. (2008). Assessing psychosocial correlates of parental safety behaviour using Protection Motivation Theory: stair gate presence and use among parents of toddlers. Health Educ Res 23: 723-731 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Kendrick, D, Smith, S, Sutton, A, Watson, M, Coupland, C, Mulvaney, C, Mason-Jones, A (2008). Effect of education and safety equipment on poisoning-prevention practices and poisoning: systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression. Arch. Dis. Child. 93: 599-608 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Hewitt, C. E, Mitchell, N., Torgerson, D. J (2008). Listen to the data when results are not significant. BMJ 336: 23-25 [Full text]  
• Groom, L, Kendrick, D, Coupland, C, Patel, B, Hippisley-Cox, J (2006). Inequalities in hospital admission rates for unintentional poisoning in young children.. Inj. Prev. 12: 166-170 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Hendrickson, S G (2005). Reaching an underserved population with a randomly assigned home safety intervention. Inj. Prev. 11: 313-317 [Abstract] [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Inconclusive results

Alison Coulter, et al.
bmj.com, 25 May 2005 [Full text]

Online poll

Find out more >>