Keeping pre-adolescents safe: Parental knowledge and safety promotion strategies

Sex Differences in the Relation Between Supervision and Injury Risk Across Motor Development Stages: Transitioning From Infancy Into Toddlerhood

Rationale

Addressing a notable gap in research on injuries during infancy, this longitudinal study examined sex differences in the relationship between parents’ typical levels of supervision and infants’ injuries across motor development stages.

Method

Parents were recruited and completed biweekly phone calls about their infant’s motor skills. Once the infant was able to sit up independently, then a home visit was scheduled. Applying a participant-event monitoring method, parents were taught to complete diary forms (injury, supervision), which they started doing once the child could move from their seated location on the floor in some way (e.g., roll, crawl). Recordings continued until a month after the child could walk independently. Data (injury, supervision) were averaged within each motor development stage (low, high), and associations across stages were examined.

Results

Model testing indicated that supervision level moderated the relation between injury rate across motor development stages, but the strength of this association varied by sex of the child. More intense supervision predicted lower injury rates for girls more so than for boys.

Conclusions

Although the emergence of motor milestones has been associated with increased risk of injury during infancy, the current findings indicate that greater supervision can reduce this risk. However, supervision alone is not as effective to moderate injury risk for boys as it is for girls. Thus, for boys, additional strategies (e.g., hazard removal) may also be warranted to maximize reduction in their risk of injury as they acquire increasing motor skills.

Spanish Adaptation of the Inventory Brief Child Abuse Potential and the Protective Factors Survey

Child maltreatment is a public health problem with different consequences depending on the form of abuse. Measuring risk and protective factors has been a fertile ground for research, without involving instruments with sufficient evidence of validity. The aim of the study was to gather evidence of validity and reliability of the Inventory Brief Child Abuse Potential (IBCAP) and Protective Factors Survey (PFS) in the Mexican population. The instruments were translated into Spanish. In a non-probabilistic sample of 200 participants, the 7-factor model for the IBCAP [comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.984; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.067] and the 4-factor model for the PFS (CFI = 0.974; RMSEA = 0.061) were confirmed, showing adequate fit indices. Reliability was estimated and evidence of convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity was collected, controlling for effects of social desirability. We also report interpretability statistics of the scores. We achieved solid progress in the development of instrumentation that allows determining the presence or absence of protective and risk factors for child abuse.

Influence of Lack of Trust on Romantic Relationship Problems: The Mediating Role of Partner Cell Phone Snooping

We investigated how a lack of trust in one's romantic partner exacerbates problems such as emotional instability, conflict, or intention to break up in relationships with the role of cell phone snooping as a mediator. A cross-sectional survey of married individuals (n = 329) was conducted using an online questionnaire. Results indicate that lack of trust is a significant predictor of romantic relationship problems. In addition, structural equation modeling results support the theoretical model indicating that cell phone snooping partially mediates the significant relationship between emotional instability, intention to break up, and conflicts. Findings support the development of trust in romantic partners as an approach to stability and avoidance of problems in romantic relationships.