Does accident prevention education reduce the incidence of childhood accidents in the home?

This mini-review examines whether accident prevention education reduces the incidence of home accidents among children under the age of 5 years. The Cochrane Library, Medline, CINAHL and Embase databases were searched for randomized controlled studies (RCTs) and systematic reviews of RCTs that compared parents who received accident prevention education with those that did not. Only two RCTs met the inclusion criteria for analysis in this review. The results of these studies showed that there was no statistically significant difference in accidents between the two groups but the quality of the trials was low. An RCT in process (Watson et al, 2002) looks likely to provide evidence of a high standard, so that practice decisions regarding accident prevention education can be made.

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