Community based programs to prevent poisoning related practices and poisonings in children

Conclusion: Indications for effectiveness

Kendrick et al. (2008 ) found that home safety interventions increased safety practices related to poisonings, including storage of medicines and cleaning products, the possession of syrup of ipecac, and having poison control centre numbers accessible. There was no consistent evidence that intervention effects differed by child age, gender or social group.

Kendrick et al. (2008) found that there was a lack of evidence for the effect of community based programs on poisoning rates. Nixon et al. (2004) also concluded that community based education campaigns alone have not shown to lead to measurable reduction of poisoning in children from which evidence regarding the effectiveness of community based childhood poisoning prevention programs can be obtained.

In sum, community based education campaigns alone lead to no measurable reduction of poisoning in children.

In general the important elements of community based interventions are (see, Towner & Dowswell, 2002):
*long term strategy
*effective leadership
*multi-agency collaboration
*use of local surveillance to develop locally appropriate interventions
*tailoring interventions to the needs of the target group

Conclusion: Indications for effectiveness

Suggestions for future research:
There is relatively little research from which evidence regarding the effectiveness of community based childhood poisoning prevention programs can be obtained. There is a need to develop this evidence base. Evaluations of apparently successful interventions in one setting need to be replicated in different sociocultural settings.

Suggestions for practice and policy:
The finding (see Nixon et al., 2004) that child resistant closures are effective in a community intervention study in Africa some 20 years after child resistant closures were widely introduced into high income economies raises the issue of transferability of injury prevention interventions across cultural and political boundaries.

Review Date: 16/06/2010
Version: 1.1
Status: Publish

Procedure
Articles (reviews) and reports were included that were published between 2000 and 2010, in English and Dutch. The outcomes of the study were reviewed by the Dutch Consumer Safety Institute.

Strategy: An online literature search was performed by a researcher of the Consumer Safety Institute and after this a more thorough search was performed by the documentation centre of CSI (Catalog CenV, Pubmed, Injury lit, Google, Websites, 'Grey' literature). Results of each search were compared on differences and potential missed studies were added. First the titles and then abstracts were scanned in order to include relevant studies. In the case of insufficient information obtained from abstracts the full text articles were obtained. Relevant articles were scrutinized and background documents were created. In addition, relevant references of included articles were checked on new and relevant articles (i.e., snowball search).

The outcomes of the study were reviewed by an expert in the field of child safety in the summer of 2010.

Background documents

Effect of education and safety equipment on poisoning-prevention practices and poisoning : systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression (version 1.1)
D. Kendrick, S. Smith, A. Sutton, ...[et al.] (2008)

Community based programs to prevent poisoning in children 0-15 years (version 1.0)
J. Nixon, A. Spinks, C. Turner ... [et al.] (2004)

Community-based childhood injury prevention interventions : what works? (version 1.0)
Elizabeth Towner, Therese Dowswell (2002)

There is relatively little research from which evidence regarding the effectiveness of community based childhood poisoning prevention programs can be obtained. There is a need to develop this evidence base. Evaluations of apparently successful interventions in one setting need to be replicated in different sociocultural settings.

Suggestions for practice and policy:
The finding (see Nixon et al., 2004) that child resistant closures are effective in a community intervention study in Africa some 20 years after child resistant closures were widely introduced into high income economies raises the issue of transferability of injury prevention interventions across cultural and political boundaries.
Review
Date: 16/06/2010
Version: 1.1
Status: Publish

Procedure
Articles (reviews) and reports were included that were published between 2000 and 2010, in English and Dutch. The outcomes of the study were reviewed by the Dutch Consumer Safety Institute.

Strategy: An online literature search was performed by a researcher of the Consumer Safety Institute and after this a more thorough search was performed by the documentation centre of CSI (Catalog CenV, Pubmed, Injury lit, Google, Websites, 'Grey' literature). Results of each search were compared on differences and potential missed studies were added. First the titles and then abstracts were scanned in order to include relevant studies. In the case of insufficient information obtained from abstracts the full text articles were obtained. Relevant articles were scrutinized and background documents were created. In addition, relevant references of included articles were checked on new and relevant articles (i.e., snowball search).

The outcomes of the study were reviewed by an expert in the field of child safety in the summer of 2010.

Background documents

Community based programs to prevent poisoning in children 0-15 years (version 1.0)
J. Nixon, A. Spinks, C. Turner ... [et al.] (2004)

Community-based childhood injury prevention interventions : what works? (version 1.0)
Elizabeth Towner, Therese Dowswell (2002)