Perception of Choking Injury Risk Among Healthcare Students

Abstract

Choking injuries in children represent a severe public health burden. Although most choking injuries are due to food, parents have often been found to be unaware of the choking hazards presented by food. In this context, healthcare professionals may play an important role in choking prevention by educating families. We investigate the perception of choking injury risk among healthcare profession students by comparing their awareness and knowledge of choking hazards with those of people without a specific health education. A survey was conducted among a sample of final year healthcare profession students from two universities in northern Italy and a sample of adults from the general population without any health education.Respondents were asked to look at ten pictures and identify the items that pose the greatest choking hazard to children of different age groups. Seventy-one students and 742 adults without any health education responded to the survey. A higher percentage of the adults without a health education identified a food item as posing the greatest choking hazard in comparison to the percentage of healthcare profession students. The results of this study suggest that there is a need to include specific educational modules on choking prevention in healthcare-related degree programs.

Monitoring Public Perception of Health Risks in Brazil and Italy: Cross-Cultural Research on the Risk Perception of Choking in Children

“…The questionnaire has been developed in the context of the Susy Safe project [ 22 ] and has been used in other research settings as well [ 23 ]. It is administered to collect data on the risk perception of CH among adults having no formal health degree.…”

“…The questionnaire includes ten images of jewelry, popcorn, batteries, hotdogs, toys, stationery, candies, coins, nuts, and seeds. These are the same items of the questionnaire previously administered in Italy [ 23 ]; they seem to represent most of the CH findings, particularly in a child aged 0–3 years [ 17 ].…”

“…According to the literature, the age classification has been defined considering that the risk of injury is highest in children between 1 and 2 years of age [ 24 ]. Additional details about the data collection tool are reported elsewhere [ 23 ].…”

“…Subjects were enrolled during multiple national events between 2014 and 2016. These public events aimed to sensitize adult supervisors on the issue of food choking injuries in children [ 23 ]. Only Italian respondents were selected to perform the analysis.…”

“…Only Italian respondents were selected to perform the analysis. Other details about questionnaire administration in the Italian sample can be found elsewhere [ 23 ].…”