Home Visiting in the Prevention of Childhood Injury

A systematic review 1 including 11 RCTs with a total of 3,433 subjects and follow-up time of 0.8 to 4 years was abstracted in DARE.

6/8 trials reported a lower incidence of childhood injury in the group that received home visits. Pooled odds ratio of injury for the 8 trials was 0.74 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.92). Four studies examining the effect of home visiting in the first year of life only had a pooled odds ratio of 0.98 (95% CI 0.62 to 1.53).

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by sparse data (wide confidence intervals)

References

• Roberts I, Kramer MS, Suissa S. Does home visiting prevent childhood injury? A systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ 1996 Jan 6;312(7022):29-33. [PubMed][DARE]