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Health and Safety in Day Care: Parental Knowledge

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: Department of Pediatrics-Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics

Patricia S. Beach, MD

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: Department of Pediatrics-Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics

David P. McCormick, MD

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: Department of Pediatrics-Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics

Virginia N. Niebuhr, Ph.D.

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: Department of Pediatrics-Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Psychology

Susan Weller, Ph.D

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: Department of Pediatrics-Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, Division of Sociomedical Science

Because injuries and illnesses occur among children, even in licensed child care facilities, parents need to be aware of existing hazards. We developed a questionnaire to assess parental knowledge of 16 health and safety features in their child's care facility. These health and safety features were identified by parents, in a pilot study, as being the most important features in a child care facility. This questionnaire was completed by 91 parents who use day care. Parents were well-educated employees of a health care institution. Our results indicate that even well-educated parents often do not check child care facilities for health and safety features. Parents tolerated a mean of 9.3% of 16 unsafe features and did not know the status of 22.4% of the features. Fifteen percent of the children had been removed from their child care facility because of health and safety concerns, 7.7% reported an injury. Our results suggest that it is important that physicians, during well child visits, include discussions about health and safety issues in the day care environment.

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