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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Karen A. McDonnell, PhD, Prevention and Community Health, George Washington University SPHHS, 2175 K Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037, 202.467-2282, kmcdonne@gwu.edu and Andrea C. Gielen, ScD, ScM, Health, Behavior & Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, 7th floor, Baltimore, MD 21205.

Purpose: While the rates of unintentional injuries and their risk factors have been documented, there is a dearth of information regarding parental conceptualizations of child supervision. Child supervision is particularly important for infants and young children whose protection often depends on the actions of their caregivers. Methods: Concept mapping was used to explore and examine parental conceptualization of child supervision as it pertains to injury prevention and safety enhancement. The concept mapping process involved 63 parents of children under the age of 5 and diverse in terms of socioeconomics and race/ethnicity. Initial qualitative interviews elicited 50 items that parents rated and sorted into conceptually meaningful categories. Pile sorts and ratings were used to generate overall child supervision concept maps and maps based on parenting characteristics. Results: The child supervision concept maps for the entire sample were found to fit a 6 factor solution encompassing the areas of: preventative safety measures, teaching children to be safe, general responsibility of parent, unreasonable limitations imposed upon child, relying on others for assistance, and being vigilant/using your senses. Conceptualizations of child supervision were found to differ for high and low PLOC. Discussion: Our results demonstrate that caregiver conceptualizations of child supervision differ based upon caregiver's perceptions of their parenting locus of control. Concept mapping results can be used to develop a conceptualization of child supervision that can be used to facilitate the implementation of responsive interventions appropriate for a wide range of families from varying backgrounds to enhance child supervision.

Learning Objectives:

• Articulate the procedures used in concept mapping to conceptualize child supervision.
• Evaluate the resulting concept maps generated from parental pile sort activities.
• Apply the results of the concept mapping activities towards the development of responsive program design.

Keywords: Injury Prevention, Children

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered