Recorded presentation

Sherry Garrett Hendrickson, PhD, RN, School of Nursing, The University of Texas at Austin, 1700 Red River, Austin, TX 78701, 512 471-9079, shendrickson@mail.nur.utexas.edu and Jacquelyn Williams, MSN, RN, School of Nursing, New Mexico State University, Box 30001 Dept. 3185, Las Cruces, NM 88003.

The objective of this randomized controlled trial was to identify best practice approaches to home safety for 1 to 4 year old children in environmentally disadvantaged, monolingual Spanish-speaking homes. This study proposed that home safety maternal care for low-income children can be improved through culturally-appropriate, promotora-delivered interventions designed to: (a) identify safety behaviors and barriers, and (b) increase maternal self-efficacy for safety behaviors.

A pre- and post-test experimental design was used to analyze differences in maternal self-efficacy for home safety beliefs (MSESB) and controllable safety hazards (CHS) between mothers who did or did not receive a home visit intervention. Participants were randomly assigned across recruitment sites, maintaining allocation concealment by using sealed opaque envelopes, to the experimental and comparison groups in two underserved communities, one in central Texas, the other in southern New Mexico. The 28 experimental group mothers received a home safety intervention. Delivered at Visit 2, the intervention lasted approximately one hour. Based on self-efficacy theory, the intervention provided information and discussion centering on prevention of home hazards observed and tailored to the child's age. The 28 comparison group mothers received an equal-attention home visit to discuss preschool-readiness. A baseline self-report of outcome data measures of acculturation, CES-D, MSESB scores, and the observational measure of CHS, was collected as covariates to assess homogeneity within groups at Visits 1. A blinded-to-group promotora collected these measures again at Visit 3, and conducted a walk-through to score CHS at Visit 4. Developing innovative, best practices in working with non-English speaking, underserved populations is essential to the success of public health professionals. Our study begins to fill the gap in this foundational knowledge.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• describe the gaps in jury prevention knowledge, and how these might be addressed in their own practice; and
• evaluate the issues of collaborating with promotoras or other community health workers.

Keywords: Community Research, Latinas

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation