Methods of Health Education Delivery to the Parents and Caregivers on Preventing Childhood Injuries: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Unintentional injuries to children have significant impact on child mortality and mortality. Health education is one of the important strategies in the childhood injury prevention which involve various methods and techniques. The aim of the review is to provide narrative findings of systematic review of different methods of delivery for health education intervention to reduce unintentional childhood injuries among parents and caregivers in primary care setting. Methods: The systematic review was guided by PRISMA guidelines. The searched databases included Medline, CINAHL, PubMed, ProQuest and Ovid. All report titles and abstracts were screened using pre-defined criteria. Peer-reviewed journal and grey literature published from 1 January 2010 to 31 May 2020 were included. Two independent reviewers select studies, extracted data, checked accuracy, assessed risk of bias and assessed the quality of each article selected. Articles were included if they were peer-reviewed and published in English language. Data was extracted and analysed using narrative synthesis approach. Results: 325 articles were identified during initial search strategy. Duplicates were removed and article were screened by title and abstract. Final eight articles were selected and reviewed. Risk of bias for each study were assessed using Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. The systematic review synthesized the characteristics of the selected studies and features of delivery methods of health education intervention. All the reviewed paper concluded their intervention was effective in achieving their objectives which is improving the knowledge, attitude, and safety practice for injury prevention. Majority of the intervention supplemented their education intervention with printed materials such as pamphlets and booklets. Half of the intervention were delivered by healthcare professionals. This review provides fresh narrative evidence on the latest delivery methods for health education in injury prevention to the parents and caregivers. Conclusion: Majority of the studies reported using a combination of various methods of delivery in their intervention and proven to be effective. However, there is a gap in term of use of technology and economic evaluation of each methods that can be addressed in future research and practice. Study registration: The study was registered with PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Review (CRD:42020202753).