Measures of Children's Injuries: Self-Reported Versus Maternal-Reported Events with Temporally Proximal Versus Delayed Reporting

Abstract

Although attention has recently been focused on understanding and preventing children's injuries, much controversy exists over the best data collection methods for examining child injuries. This study examined three methodological issues relevant to childhood injury data collection including the length of time children and parents can be expected to meaningfully recall injuries, whether the parent or child is a preferred informant about the injury, and the potential use of near injuries as a proxy measure for actual child injuries. Both children and their mothers were individually interviewed every 2 weeks for a total of 6 months about both injuries and near injuries. In addition, at the end of the 6-month period, they were asked to recall all injuries that occurred during those 6 months. Overall, children reported more injuries than mothers. Children recalled far fewer and mothers recalled slightly fewer events than had been reported in the biweekly interviews. There were fewer near injury than actual injury events reported, although this varied across categories, with some categories (e.g., car passenger injuries) having more near than actual injuries, and other categories (e.g., cuts, bumps, and bruises) having many more actual than near injuries reported. Limitations of the project are discussed and implications for future research advanced.

Evaluation of the Quality of an Injury Surveillance System

“…In total, 43 studies were retrieved, of which, IWO directly assessed the reliability and validity of proxy respondent information on childhood injury (52,97 The largest declines in rates were noted for the 0-4 age group and for minor injuries (those not requiring hospitalization, surgery, or leading to restriction in activities). In contrast, annuaI rates for severe injuries were relatively stable over the recaIl period.…”

“…to Il years of age with maternaI reports (97). In total, 23 families were studied, with the mother and child independently interviewed at IWo-weekly intervaIs for six months.…”

Mothers’ Reporting on Nonfatal Child Injuries and the Association to Physical Punishment and Child Labor: A Household Survey

“…Only one child was selected randomly from each eligible family to avoid clustering effect of injuries in the same family. A proxy interview with mothers of children aged 0 to 15 years was conducted with six month recall [6] preceding the survey. Out of a total 1230 questionnaires only 1199 (701 urban and 498 rural) were included in the statistical analysis.…”

“…There appear to be similarities between countries regarding nonfatal injuries. Child injuries at home are much more difficult to assess than hospitalized injuries due to layperson recall [6] and environmental risk factors [7]. It is important for control and prevention to estimate the extent of injuries among children in regards to type of injury, external cause, gender difference, and rural/ urban diversity [8].…”

Back pain in children surveyed with weekly text messages - a 2.5 year prospective school cohort study

“…The information was collected from parents to ensure continuity in data collection over several years. Proxy reports of children's BP were considered appropriate in this cohort, as self-report questionnaires in young children might be inaccurate [10][11][12][13]. A validation study was undertaken in order to determine the reproducibility of the SMS-Track reporting when comparing it with verbal reporting.…”