Conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas de los cuidadores de niños menores de 5 años en prevención de quemaduras, Cuenca, 2018

Abstract

Background: Burns in children represent one of the most frequent serious and disabling accidents that exist. Most of these burn accidents can be avoided, as they are due to carelessness, in general domestic. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the infant mortality rate from burns is more than seven times higher in low-resource countries than high-income countries. General objective: identify the knowledge, attitudes and practices of caregivers of children under 5 years of age in the prevention of burns, from the Sub-Health Center of Tarqui parish, 2018. Methodology: cross-sectional descriptive study, we worked with N = 405 and n = 122 caregivers of children under 5 belonging to the Sub-Health Center "Tarqui", applying a survey based on the Párraga and Yagua questionnaire. Results: of the 122 caregivers of children, 45.9% are young female adults, 53.3% with primary education level. The knowledge on prevention of burns with respect to the use of electrical connections is adequate, since 43.4% know that the action after using a power tool is to lift it in safe places. In the attitudes, it was identified that 87.7% of caregivers always test the water before bathing the child and 96.7% explain to the child about prevention of burns. Finally, the practices on prevention of burns, 93.40% away dangerous products from children, about 70% use the back burner to cook and disconnect electrical appliances. Conclusions: caregivers of children under 5 years have knowledge, attitudes and proper practices on the prevention of burns. Although, we identified responses that could cause this type of accidents, such as: the frequency with which the child is observed while the caregiver cooks or while the child is playing.