Do safety practices differ between responders and non-responders to a safety questionnaire?

OBJECTIVE To compare reported safety practices between responders and non-responders to a safety survey. DESIGN Cross sectional survey at baseline compared with safety practices reported at subsequent child health surveillance checks. SUBJECTS Parents of children aged 3-12 months registered with practices participating in a controlled trial of injury prevention in primary care that did, and did not, respond to the baseline survey and who subsequently attended child health surveillance checks. RESULTS No difference in safety practices was found between responders and non-responders to the survey at the 6-9 month check. Responders were more likely to report owning a stair gate (odds ratio (OR) 2.75, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.82 to 4.16) and socket covers (OR 2.16, 95% CI 1.53 to 3.04) at the 12-15 month check, and owning socket covers (OR 2.19, 95% CI 1.34 to 3.61) at the 18-24 month check. Responders were more likely to report greater than the median number of safety practices at the 18 month check. CONCLUSIONS Non-responders to a safety survey appear to be less likely to report owning several items of safety equipment than responders. Further work is needed to confirm these findings. Extrapolating the results of safety surveys to the population as a whole may lead to over estimation of safety equipment possession.