Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to elicit the perspectives of direct care providers on barriers and facilitators to communicating injury prevention messages to parents/caregivers of children under 4 years of age. The secondary objective was to examine characteristics of an injury prevention messaging strategy preferred by direct care providers.
Design and sample: This qualitative study was conducted across four regions in Ontario Canada. Fifty-nine direct care providers were purposefully sampled and data interpreted using focus group analysis.
Measures: Transcripts were analyzed verbatim using content and discourse analysis.
Results: Several barriers to communicating injury prevention messages were identified encompassing (a) role, (b) parental, (c) social determinants, and (d) evidence impediments. In an effort to offset some of these barriers, participants endorsed the development of a tailored multicomponent injury prevention strategy adopting action-based messages.
Conclusion: The results of this study provide an in-depth exploration of direct care providers perceptions that can inform the design of materials and dissemination strategies to help increase and optimize access to injury prevention information. Injury prevention messages should be action-oriented, specifically tailored to the stage of child development, and disseminated through both face-to-face interactions and mobile technology.
Keywords: child safety; education; focus groups; health promotion; injury control; injury prevention.
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.