Perceived hazardousness of child-care products and the effectiveness of safety information

Abstract

In the present study, the hazardousness of child-care products as perceived by parents of young children between o and 4 years of age was investigated. Some related factors, such as perceived likelihood of injury, perceived severity of injury, and familiarity with the product, were also studied. Perceived hazardousness is strongly related to the effectiveness of safety information. The results indicate that parents do not think of child-care products as hazardous, and they appear to be very familiar with most of the products investigated. Perceived hazardousness was found to be most strongly related to perceived likelihood of injury and somewhat less strongly to perceived severity of injury. No relationship was found between either perceived hazardousness and familiarity or between perceived hazardousness and objective accident frequencies. It was concluded from this study that, because the perceived hazardousness of child-care products is low, the effectiveness of safety information provided with these products will also be low. Recommendations for improving the effectiveness of safety information are provided.