Determinants of Prevention of Home Accidents in Mothers with Children under Five Years Old Based on Protection Motivation Theory

Accidents are the first cause of death in children under five years old, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
The aim of this study was to identify the determinants of behavior as well as prevention of domestic accidents in mothers of children under five years old referring to health centers in Jooibar, Iran, based on protection motivation theory in 2015.
In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study, 190 mothers were randomly selected. The data gathering tool was individual information form and researcher-made questionnaire about prevention of home accidents in children under five years of age based on protection motivation theory, which was vailed and reliable in a preliminary study. Data were entered in SPSS software version 16 and analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics.
The mean of perceived response efficacy was good and the means of other structures of protection motivation theory were moderate. There was a significant correlation between the scores of perceived vulnerability (r = 0.39, P = 0.001) and perceived severity, as well as between the scores of perceived response efficacy and self-efficacy (r = 0.47, P = 0.001). In mothers with higher education, scores of perceived response efficacy was higher (P = 0.012). Mean of scores of perceived response efficacy and self-efficacy were higher in mothers who took care of their children themselves compared with mothers whose children were taken care of by others.
Discussion and perceptions of vulnerability, severity and response costs were moderate in the studied mothers and planning promotional interventions in this area based on protection motivation theory is proposed (P = 0.0001, P = 0.0004).