The Ability of Mothers of Young Children to Anticipate Potential Home Accidents

Abstract

Mothers' interventions in events that may cause accidental injury to their children have been shown in previous research to depend on their ability to anticipate the injury. To investigate whether this ability varies with injury type, 72 mothers of 1-, 2 and 3-year-olds were presented vignettes describing six different types of home accidents. There were three versions of each vignette: One describing the injury-causing agent prior to the child being present, one in which the child was present without actually interacting with the agent, and one in which the child interacted with the agent. The mothers identified the type of accidental injury and rated the likelihood that the injury occured to their child. The results showed that most types of injuries were anticipated when the child was present without interacting with the injury-causing aent. Exceptions were injuries resulting from the child being caught and electrical accidents that were anticipated, when the child interacted with the injuiy-causing agent.