VALUTAZIONE DEL RISCHIO DI INFORTUNI IN BAMBINI D’ETA’ PRESCOLARE: UNO STUDIO PRELIMINARE SULLA INJURY BEHAVIOR CHECKLIST

Unintentional injury is the first cause of death and a leading cause of hospitalization during childhood. Literature highlights an important connection between unintentional injuries, child sex (with higher percentages for boys) and externalizing behaviors. In order to distinguish general behavioral problems from more specific injury proneness, research tried to develop measures allowing to target specific high risk subgroups of preschoolers. The aim of the present research is to propose Injury Behavior Checklist validity study (IBC; Speltz et al., 1990) with Italian subjects, by assessing reliability, convergent and construct validity, to verify that checklist actually measures injury liability even in Italian preschoolers. Participants were 514 parents of children aged between 24 e 75 months. Respondents were asked to complete IBC and Child Behavior Checklist. Results indicated that IBC, in Italian version too, had good reliability and statistic validity and e confirmed that high injury risk children were boys and showed greater intensity and frequency of externalizing behaviors