Preventing dog bites in children: randomised controlled trial of an educational intervention

Abstract

Dog bites are a major cause of injury, particularly in children.1 2 Guidelines on prevention are generally unevaluated and include controls on high risk breeds, keeping dogs on a leash, animal training, and educating dog owners.3 4 However, there are no evaluations of interventions designed to teach people how to avoid being attacked by a dog. “Prevent-a-Bite” is an educational programme designed for primary school children.5 The programme aims to instil precautionary behaviour around dogs, assuming that this might reduce the incidence of attacks. A randomised controlled trial of the efficacy of the intervention was conducted in Australian children aged 7-8 years who were presented with an unsupervised opportunity to approach a strange dog. Eight primary schools in metropolitan Sydney were randomly selected to participate in the trial. All agreed. The schools were cluster randomised into intervention and non-intervention control schools (four in each group), and two classes in each …