# The effects of an educational intervention based on the protection motivation theory on the attitude of mothers regarding the prevention of child poisoning: a quasi-experimental study

## TL;DR

This study shows that an educational program based on a psychological theory can improve mothers' attitudes toward preventing child poisoning.

## Contribution

The study demonstrates the effectiveness of an educational intervention based on protection motivation theory in improving mothers' attitudes toward child poisoning prevention.

## Key findings

- The educational intervention significantly increased perceived sensitivity and self-efficacy in the intervention group.
- The intervention had no significant effect on other constructs like perceived severity, fear, response efficacy, and response cost.
- The results suggest that using protection motivation theory in educational programs can help change mothers' behaviors to prevent child poisoning.

## Abstract

childhood poisoning is considered a major health problems. In order to prevent child poisoning, providing general education to society may be effective in reducing these types of childhood accidents. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of an educational intervention on the attitude of mothers regarding childhood poisoning prevention in Tehran, Iran, using the protection motivation theory.

This study was of a quasi-experimental design. 129 mothers with children aged 1 to 6 years who were referred to selected comprehensive urban health service centers in the city of Tehran were divided into two intervention and control groups by cluster-random sampling method. 64 people were in the intervention group and 65 people were in the control group. Willingness to participate in the study, having at least one child between 1 and 6 years old, having a smart cell phone, mother’s literacy, having a health record in the selected centers were the study inclusion criteria; and on the other hand, not completing answer to the questionnaire, leaving the study at any time, not participating in at least one training session were the exclusion criteria in this study. Educational content based on protection motivation theory was implemented for mothers in the form of two 10-15-minutes educational video sessions and one discussion session virtually. Questionnaires were completed by mothers before, immediately after and one month after the educational intervention. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 23 software in two sections, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.

The intervention and control groups in terms of demographic characteristics were the same. The mean score of perceived sensitivity and self-efficacy constructs after the educational intervention was significantly higher in the intervention group rather than in the control group (p < 0.05). Also, the difference in the scores of other protection motivation theory constructs (perceived severity, fear, response efficacy and response cost) in the two groups was not statistically significant.

The results of this study showed the effectiveness of the educational intervention based on the protection motivation theory on the attitude of mothers with 1-6-year-old children against child poisoning. Therefore, using this theory for making educational programs in health treatment centers could be useful to change the performance of mothers in preventing of poisoning in children at home.