Home safety education and provision of safety equipment for injury prevention

Kendrick D, Coupland C, Mulvaney C, Simpson J, Smith S, Sutton A, Watson M

Summary

Home safety education and providing safety equipment for injury prevention

Injuries are the leading cause of childhood death in industrialised countries. People living in disadvantaged circumstances are at greater risk of injury than those more advantaged. This review examined whether home safety education and providing safety equipment increased safety behaviours and safety equipment use and reduced injuries. It also looked at whether home safety education was more or less effective in families which are disadvantaged. The review authors found 80 studies, which reported many different safety behaviours, but few studies included information on injuries.

The results often varied between studies, but overall families who received home safety education were more likely to have a safe hot tap water temperature, a working smoke alarm, to store medicines, cleaning products and sharp objects out-of-reach, to have fitted stair gates and socket covers on unused sockets and to have syrup of ipecac and poison control centre numbers accessible. The reviewers did not find that home safety education reduced injury rates, but this may have been due to the small number of studies which measured injuries, and more research is needed to answer this question. The reviewers did not find that home safety education was less effective in families whose children were at greater risk of injury.