Do child characteristics interact with supervision to influence children's risk of unintentional injury?

摘要

This thesis is an investigation of unintentional childhood injury, which is a significant problem in North American society. Research to date has largely focused on identifying individually significant risk factors, but has not thoroughly investigated interactions among variables that influence unintentional childhood injury. The present study examined evidence for a moderating effect of supervision on the relation between child characteristics and unintentional injury risk. Mothers of preschoolers 2 and 5 years of age provided information about their child's characteristics, how they supervised their child while at home, and their child's injury history. Multiple regression analyses, controlling for age and sex, revealed significant interactions between several child characteristics and indicators of supervision in predicting both moderate and medically-attended types of injuries, providing evidence of supervision's role as a moderator of the relation between child characteristics and unintentional injury risk.