THE PERCEPTION OF NEWS ON CHILD DROWNING PROBLEM IN THAILAND

Abstract

This research had the objective to understand the perception about child drowning news and problems of parents/ children’s guardians, and the general public by using the survey research in the area of Bangkok and its vicinity, central region, northern part, northeast region and southern area. The provinces had been randomly selected as the regional representatives and the sample groups had been determined into 4,000 children aged 5-14 years and 1,000 general public. The analysis of data used descriptive statistics which were frequency and percentage.

The overall survey indicated that the general public perceived news and problems on child drowning higher than children aged 5-14 years in almost aspects with some exception area only in which children group has higher perception. Those topics are that “drowning is the 1^st cause of death that occurs to children under 15 years”, “the first Saturday in March marks child drowning prevention day”, “water sources nearby house including swamp, pond, pool are all considered as the places to cause child drowning the most”. Moreover, the results suggested that the points which should be publicized more in order to communicate with the children and the general youth on the correct information and understanding since the perception of these points were quite low were as follows:

- “the first Saturday in March marks child drowning prevention day”, only 12.70% of children knew about it, while 9.30% of the general public knew it.

- After recuing the drowned people, you have to carry them on the shoulder and then, shake up and down to drain water out of their mouth. This belief is misconception 56.28% of children and 71.60% of the general public understood that the above practice was correct.