Application of the Protection Motivation Theory in Predicting Preventive Behaviors from Children's Accidental Falls in Mothers with Children Less than Three Years Old Referred to Health Centers

Aim: Decades named preventing injuries decade. The most sensitive and vulnerable persons against diseases and accident, especially accidental falls are children. This study aimed to determine the application of the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) in predicting preventive behaviors from children's accidental falls (AFs) in mothers with children less than 3 years old referred to the health centers of Mashhad City.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 140 mothers who were selected from the health centers of Mashhad City according to the inclusion criteria of the study and by cluster and systematic sampling. The instruments for data collection were valid and reliable questionnaires of demographic information, a self-administered questionnaire that is assumed to examine the structures of PMT and preventive behaviors from CAFs and were analyzed with SPSS 20. Pearson & Spearman, one way ANOVA correlation coefficient and linear regression were applied together to analyze the data.
Findings: The mean age of the subjects was 27.42+5.07 years. The results also showed that there were statistically significant relationships between the perceived susceptibility and protection motivation and preventive behaviors from CAFs (P<0.001). Based on regression analysis, preventive behaviors from CAFs using the structures of protection motivation was generally 66%.
Conclusion: The results showed that the mother‟s sensitivity and knowledge about preventive behaviors from CAFs were low. The findings of this study can be useful for designing educational interventions for prevention of CAFs by health authorities.