Health professionals are key stakeholders who potentially have important roles in preventing unintentional child home injuries. This study aimed to identify facilitators and barriers to the prevention of unintentional child home injuries perceived by health professionals.

A generic qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews.

The capital city of Iran.

Data for this study were collected through 28 in-depth interviews with health professionals. Purposive sampling was conducted from three areas of Tehran based on their socio-economic development.

Thematic data analysis yielded nine overarching themes: prioritising child home injury, knowledge, the nature of injury and injury prevention, child-related factors, parent-related factors, living environment, cultural issues, resources and management.

Health professionals can potentially be supportive to meet families’ needs. However, further support and resources will be required if they are to fully develop their potential in preventing injuries in the home. The lack of a national action plan was a significant constraint for health professionals.

To explore maternal perceptions of supervision and childhood unintentional injury in order to develop understanding and explanation for differences in unintentional injury rates between an advantaged and disadvantaged area.

Unintentional injury is the second cause of mortality and a significant cause of morbidity in the zero to four year age group. Children living in socio-economic disadvantage are at a greater risk of unintentional injury than their more affluent counter-parts.

Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews; content data analysis was undertaken. Participants included 37 mothers with a child aged less than five years; 16 living in an area of disadvantage (and high rate of childhood unintentional injury) and 21 living in an advantaged area (and low rate of childhood unintentional injury).

Parents in both areas described the importance of parental supervision in reducing child unintentional injury risks. Parents in both areas used listening as a supervision strategy. Parents in both areas described how ‘when the child goes quiet’ that is a cue for them to make a visual check on the child. Listening was used more for boys than girls in both areas, but parents in the advantaged area used listening as a supervision strategy more frequently than those in the disadvantaged area. Parents described supervision strategies as being shaped by child character and age rather than child gender. Parents in both areas described similar strategies for managing distractions. An important difference was found with regard to older siblings; parents living in the advantaged area described older siblings as an injury risk to younger children. Parents in the disadvantaged area described older siblings as providing some supervision for younger children. Parents living in disadvantaged circumstances may face greater challenges with regard to supervision than parents living in advantaged circumstances and this may partly explain differences in injury risk.