To investigate carers' knowledge, behavior and attitude towards accidental injuries of children, and discuss methods to prevent children from accidental injuries.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 670 carers of children aged 1-14 years old in urban and rural areas of Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, to investigate their knowledge, behavior and attitude towards accidental injuries and to analyze the composition of the factors.

754 questionnaires were given out and 709 questionnaires were recycled, 670 questionnaires were valid, with the valid response rate of 95.5%. (1)Basic situation: 600 respondents were parents of the children. 78.3% of respondents (525 cases) received education varying from senior high school to junior college or above. (2)Cognition and attitude towards accidental injuries: 597 respondents (89.1%) believed that accidental injuries could be prevented, and 545 respondents (81.3%) thought that children more easily got hurt in the public and on the road. The most worrying types of accidents were burns and scalds (532 respondents, 79.4%), traffic accidents (510 respondents, 76.1%), and electric shock (477 respondents, 71.2%). (3)Prevention on accidental injuries: 173 respondents (25.8%) carried out safety education for children occasionally or even never, 172 respondents (25.6%) left their children alone at home. 198 respondents (29.6%) disposed drugs and detergent in a place where children could get. 99 respondents (14.8%) thought that children could laugh or romp while eating and 59 respondents (8.8%) did not equip them with first-aid medicine at home. (4)Treatment of accidental injuries: 423 respondents (63.1%) had never heard of or could not do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). 463 respondents (69.1%) did not know how to deal with children’s ingestion of foreign bodies into the trachea by mistake. 133 respondents (19.8%) dealt with wrong methods when children were bitted by pets. (5)Access of accidental injury knowledge: the most common way to acquire accidental injury knowledge were Internet (445 respondents, 66.4%), medical education (434 respondents, 64.8%), and TV program (433 respondents, 64.6%). The most desired ways were medical education (481 respondents, 71.8%), community publicity (465 respondents, 69.4%), and TV program (400 respondents, 59.7%).

The respondents mainly consist of educated parents with certain knowledge in all walks of life. Most of them believe that accidental injuries can be prevented, but part of them are weakly aware of accidental injuries at home. More than half of respondents cannot implement CPR and other emergency treatment. Therefore, we need to provide valid and multi-path knowledge for carers to prevent accidental injuries.

Children; Carer; Accidental injury; Knowledge; Behavior; Attitude