Citation

Hossain M, Mani KKC. Int. J. Community Med. Public Health (Gujarat) 2020; 7(8): 2906-2913.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Medip Academy)

DOI

10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20203362

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Drowning is the third leading cause of death for children aged 0-4 years in many Asian countries, and is a serious but neglected health problem in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, drowning rates are 10 to 20 times more than those in other developed countries. The aim of this study is the efficiency of mobile SMS intervention for increasing parental socio-demographic knowledge of drowning prevention in Bangladesh.

Methods: A cluster randomized community trial with 788 parents of children aged under five in a rural community of Bangladesh. The intervention was the mobile short message service (SMS) for parents of children under five years concerning the prevention of drowning. The main outcome of this study was the differences in knowledge of parents with socio-demographic factors concerning the prevention of drowning between the baseline and immediate follow-up after the intervention, and after three months.

Results: There was a significant improvement in knowledge in the intervention group compared to the control group at different time points. There is a significant association with parental age, education, gender, and income and to improve childhood drowning prevention knowledge of parents to compare control group of parents.

Conclusions: Special programmes and training could be increase knowledge about childhood drowning prevention in Bangladesh and should be broadcast on the radio and television networks.

Language: en