Qualitative analysis of emergency department reports applied to a pilot project for the prevention of pediatric burns

Accidents and burns are a major problem in Italy and in industrialized countries, due to the consequences they have on health, especially in children aged 0-4 years. In Italy, about 400 people die each year from burns, with over 70% of these occurring in the home. In the European Union, burns are one of the top five causes of death from accidents, accounting for 3% of all deaths from accidents and violence in those age groups. One percent of all deaths in children are due to burns. In this paper, we illustrate the results of qualitative analysis, conducted according to the methodology of content analysis, on narratives included in the anamnesis of clinical papers at the ED in 738 cases of burns in children (0-14 years) observed in a sample of Emergency Departments in the years 2005-2009. The results of content analysis show that the most frequent mechanism that leads to burns is contact with hot liquids and heating surfaces. Much of preventive action should be directed at controlling the child. The accidental event descriptions for the younger age group (0-4 years) reveal an unequivocal responsibility of the parents. The qualitative analysis of narratives was carried out to produce scientific evidence to identify the more frequent and severe burn accidents for specific target/age groups and to establish specific preventive measures. The study of qualitative analysis of burns observed at the ED was introductory to the pilot project PRIUS (Preventing burns among school-aged children). The objective of PRIUS is to increase awareness of the risks of burns in children and adults through a learning path tailored towards their prevention, and the promotion of appropriate standards of personal safe behaviour and first aid actions.

Development of an effective communication strategy for the prevention of burns in children: the PRIUS project

This study has developed a learning kit for the prevention of domestic burns in childhood. The main objective was to trial an educational package for children (nursery and primary classes), for the prevention of burns, to be implemented through education in schools. The educational kit comprises posters, information leaflets, comic books, and pre and post education evaluation materials for school children, parents and teachers. Recipients of the preliminary study were the students of nine schools in the eight Italian cities where Burn Centers are located. In order to reach the target groups of children, it was necessary to identify the most effective communication strategy to convey the burn prevention message. For nursery school children, it was not possible to use tools with written texts alone, as they were not yet literate. Moreover, even for older children, it was necessary to find an attractive tool to catch their attention and interest, promoting the understanding and memorization of lessons learned. The most suitable means was found to be comic strips, allowing the messages to be conveyed through images as well as words. A total of 370 children (195 from nurseries and 175 from primary schools) participated in the trial of the educational kit. Overall, for every environment represented in the evaluation table, the ability to recognize the dangers among both the pre-school and primary school children increased significantly after the training activity. In conclusion, the educational kit has been positively assessed.

Road safety and the tsunami of cell phones

In the last years an extremely rapid massive diffusion of the cell phones is occurred. Currently in Italy, as in many other countries, almost all the youngsters and a lot of adults possess a cell phones. This device is enormously useful, but its use can determine negative effects on the user's attention, i.e. during vehicle driving. Numerous epidemiological studies show that cell phone use in driving determines a relative risk of causing a road accident around 4 (equivalent to driving with 0.8 g/l blood alcohol concentration), for both hands-held and hands-free devices. This risk doesn't seem well perceived from the Italian drivers: as our surveys show, the 2.5% of them use a cellular hands-held while driving. This situation appears to evolve toward more critical conditions, given the quick diffusion of ever more technologically advanced instruments, such as video-cell phones, mostly capable of capturing the attention, or TV-cell phones, with which the distracting occasions could be more frequent and prolonged. The use of the cell phone seems to imply an important risk for pedestrians: the first results of the monitoring results that we are producing on this matter in Rome show that the 5.5% of the pedestrians cross the road while talking with a hands-held cell phones, in the most of cases ignoring the traffic conditions at all. All this facts show the urgency to promote specific actions of prevention, in absence of which it is reasonable to foresee a consistent growth in the number of road traffic accidents. In our opinion it is necessary to capillarily inform the public of the signalled risks, possibly also in the advertising spaces of the producers and managers of the cellular telephony, apart obvious repressive actions on the use of the cell phones during the guide of a vehicle.