Protection motivation theory and knowledge of household safety hazards as predictors of parental home safety behaviors

Unintentional injuries are a major health threat for children and adolescents and are especially of concern for toddler-aged children. Many unintentional injuries are sustained in the household environment; previous research has identified numerous hazards in the homes of families with toddlers. The current study attempted to identify variables that motivate parents of young children to implement safety-related precautionary measures in the home. The variables examined included parental knowledge of household safety hazards and variables of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) as predictors of observable safety hazards in the homes of families with toddler-aged children. PMT is a model that explains health-related behaviors by examining the variables associated with threat and coping with a specific health concern, in this case the risk of the child sustaining an injury in the home. The threat appraisal examines perceived vulnerability, severity, and considers the rewards gained from continuation of maladaptive behavior (e.g., not implementing safety precautions). The coping appraisal examines response efficacy (i.e., the belief that a given intervention will be effective), self-efficacy (i.e., the belief that implementing the intervention is a manageable undertaking), and considers response cost (i.e., the drawbacks of implementing the behavioral change). Two separate regression analyses were conducted to examine the unique contributions of the threat and coping variables, respectively, in explaining the total number of observed household hazards for each family. Both models explained significant portions of variance, with rewards and response cost emerging as significant predictors. A third regression was conducted examining parental knowledge of safety hazards and the PMT model. This analysis was significant, explaining 23% of variance in the model. Knowledge of safety hazards was the only significant predictor; the PMT variables did not account for a significant portion of variance above the knowledge variable. The findings indicate parental knowledge of safety hazards demonstrates a strong relationship with precautionary behavior in the home, representing a stronger relationship than variables such as advantages and disadvantages of implementing safety precautions. These findings highlight the importance of education regarding potential safety hazards to parents; however, other injury prevention strategies, such as provision of adequate supervision should also be employed regularly.