Injury-prevention counseling and behavior among US children: results from the second Injury Control and Risk Survey.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this work was to provide recent national prevalence estimates of pediatric injury-prevention counseling by health care providers, to compare these latest findings with those from a similar survey conducted in 1994, and to ascertain the association between counseling and safety behaviors.


METHODS
We conducted a cross-sectional, list-assisted random-digit-dial telephone survey of randomly selected children in English- or Spanish-speaking households in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. The main outcome measures were respondents' reports that they or their children received injury-prevention counseling from their child's health care provider in the 12 months preceding the interview, children's practices of safety behaviors, and the association of injury-prevention counseling and such behaviors.


RESULTS
The overall proportion of US children receiving any injury-prevention counseling (42.4%) remained relatively unchanged, whereas counseling on selected injury-prevention topics increased significantly compared with reports based on the 1994 survey. Topic-specific injury-prevention counseling was positively associated with the posting of the poison control center telephone number in homes with children <6 years of age and with bicycle-helmet use among children 5 to 14 years of age.


CONCLUSIONS
Although the prevalence of pediatric injury-prevention counseling remains low, such counseling was associated with safer behaviors. This suggests the importance of pediatric injury-prevention counseling and indicates the need for health care providers to increase pediatric injury-prevention counseling in clinical practices.
Chen
Jieru
J
Office of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop K59, 4770 Buford Hwy, Atlanta, GA 30341-3724, USA. chen@cdc.gov
Kresnow
Marcie-jo
MJ
Simon
Thomas R
TR
Dellinger
Ann
A
D000056:Accident Prevention; D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003376:Counseling / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011322:Primary Prevention / Q000379:methods*; D011336:Probability; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014481:United States; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*