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Ability of parents to recall the injuries of their young children

¹ Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington State, USA
² Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and the Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington State, USA
³ Group Health Cooperative, Department of Preventive Care and the Center for Health Studies, Seattle, Washington State, USA

Correspondence to:
Dr Peter Cummings
250 Grandview Drive, Bishop, CA 93514, USA; peterc{at}u.washington.edu

Objective: To estimate the ability of parents to recall the injuries of their children.

Design: Comparison of parent recall with computerized medical records.

Setting: A health maintenance organization in Washington State during 2003.

Subjects: Parents of children younger than 6 years.

Main outcome measures: The ratio of recalled injuries to injuries in computerized data.

Results: Telephone interviews were completed with a parent of 1672 young children who had computerized medical data for at least one injury in the last year. Counting the three most recent treated injuries, the 1672 children had 1896 separate new injuries in the year before interview and parents recalled 1150 of these: recall ratio 0.61 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.58 to 0.63). The recall ratio decreased from 0.82 (95% CI 0.79 to 0.85) for injuries one day before interview to 0.37 (95% CI 0.32 to 0.40) at 365 days before interview. For 341 major injuries the recall ratio was 0.80 (95% CI 0.76 to 0.84), for 202 minor injuries treated in an emergency department or hospital it was 0.77 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.82), for 597 minor injuries treated in urgent care it was 0.70 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.73), and for 756 minor injuries treated in a clinic it was 0.43 (95% CI 0.39 to 0.47).

Conclusions: Recall decreased with time. Recall was best for major injuries, intermediate for minor injuries treated in a hospital, emergency department, or urgent care center, and worst for minor injuries treated in a clinic.