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Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Evaluating a Website to Teach Children Safety with Dogs: A Randomized Controlled Trial

David C Schwebel, Peng Li, Leslie A McClure and Joan Severson
International journal of environmental research and public health, v 13(12), pp 1198-1
02 Dec 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13121198
PMID: 27918466
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13121198View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0,  Open

Abstract

Animals Bites and Stings - prevention & control Child Development Child Welfare Child, Preschool Dogs Female Follow-Up Studies Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Promotion - methods Humans Internet Male Outcome Assessment (Health Care) Patient Compliance Safety Telemedicine - methods
Dog bites represent a significant threat to child health. Theory-driven interventions scalable for broad dissemination are sparse. A website was developed to teach children dog safety via increased knowledge, improved cognitive skills in relevant domains, and increased perception of vulnerability to bites. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 69 children aged 4-5 randomly assigned to use the dog safety website or a control transportation safety website for ~3 weeks. Assessment of dog safety knowledge and behavior plus skill in three relevant cognitive constructs (impulse control, noticing details, and perspective-taking) was conducted both at baseline and following website use. The dog safety website incorporated interactive games, instructional videos including testimonials, a motivational rewards system, and messaging to parents concerning child lessons. Our results showed that about two-thirds of the intervention sample was not adherent to website use at home, so both intent-to-treat and per-protocol analyses were conducted. Intent-to-treat analyses yielded mostly null results. Per-protocol analyses suggested children compliant to the intervention protocol scored higher on knowledge and recognition of safe behavior with dogs following the intervention compared to the control group. Adherent children also had improved scores post-intervention on the cognitive skill of noticing details compared to the control group. We concluded that young children's immature cognition can lead to dog bites. Interactive eHealth training on websites shows potential to teach children relevant cognitive and safety skills to reduce risk. Compliance to website use is a challenge, and some relevant cognitive skills (e.g., noticing details) may be more amenable to computer-based training than others (e.g., impulse control).

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4 Record Views
16 citations in Web of Science
20 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Environmental Sciences
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
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