European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 7, Issue 11, 2020 1092 Knowledge And Self-Declared Practices Of Parents Regarding Home-Based Accidents And Its Prevention Among Pre-School Children Sujyotsna Jena, Assistant Professor, Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar – 751003, Odisha, India Corresponding author;Email ID: sujyotsnajena@gmail.com Abstract: Home-based accidents that occur in and around the home are of major concern among the parents of children below 5 years of age. Many children of pre-school age end up in hospitals after serious injuries due to common accidents like falls, burns, scalds, swallowing objects, etc. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship of knowledge and self-declared practices of parents regarding home-based accidents and its prevention among pre-school children. A non- experimental descriptive approach with survey method was adopted. Parents of 200 children within the age group of 3-5yrs were selected conveniently as the study sample. A self-structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Results suggested that 24% of parents had extremely good knowledge regarding home-based accidents and 25.5% of parents are good in self-declared practices. Knowledge had no statistical association with age and had a statistical association withother selected demographic variables such as education of parents, number of children and type of family, and also statistical association was found between self-declared practices and selected demographic variables (p > 0.05). The study concluded that though there is no relationship between knowledge and practices to prevent home-based accidents practices are influenced by various factors. Hence more sensitization is required to strengthen the parents to prevent various home-based accidents which are more prevalent among the pre-school children. Keywords: Knowledge, self-declared practices, home-based accidents, prevention, pre-school children Introduction Home-based accidents occurring in and around the home are of major concern among the parents of children below 5 years of age. Many children of pre-school age end up in hospitals after serious injuries due to common accidents like falls, burns, scalds, swallowing objects, etc. According to a report in 2019, 76,000 children are admitted to emergency units, of which nearly 40% are under 5 years of age. 1 Children are more prone to accidents due to their desire of exploring and learning new things and the inability to sense the extent of danger related to their actions. However these accidents sometimes being seriously fatal they are preventable by providing them with a safe environment. Child injuries have been considered as a public issue in the world by WHO in 2012. The leading cause of death among pre-school children comprises mainly infections and accidents among 40% population of developing countries. Home-based accidents are the greatest risk for injuries among 4 million pre-school children globally. 2 According to a study conducted in a rural area of Sharkia, Egypt, maximum children were injured due to incidents that occurred at homes, the majority of the injuries being due to cuts and other causes being fall, burn, animal bites and poisoning. 3 Another recent study in the peri-urban areas of Aligarh, India suggested that injuries due to domestic accidents were highly prevalent in the area among the pre-school children with male children being more prone to injuries. Injuries due to fall from height being the common cause of home accidents in the study. 4 Hence, the above study was conducted to evaluate the relationship of knowledge and self-declared practices of parents regarding home-based accidents and its prevention among pre-school children.