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We evaluated the accuracy of primary health care providers' predictions of parents' adherence to their children's short-term antibiotic regimen and a scheduled follow-up appointment. Adherence predictions were compared with objective measures of the parents' adherence. Providers were poor predictors of nonadherence, greatly overestimating the percentage of parents who would be adherent. Nonadherence is typically addressed by applying adherence improvement strategies to all patients. Recent pediatric research, however, suggests that applying contingency-based interventions for adherent patients can result in later nonadherence if the strategies are withdrawn. Inaccurate predictions of adherence will result in many nonadherent patients not receiving a needed intervention. The results indicate the need for strong behavioral predictors that result in more accurate identification of patient nonadherence to guide further applications of adherence improvement strategies.

Compared the behavior of parents and their previously injured children with parents and their uninjured children in unstructured play and distracted parent conditions. Injured children were more disruptive, more active, and had more contacts with hazards, whereas uninjured children had more appropriate behavior. Parents of injured children had lower rates of play activities. Observable classes of parent and child behaviors amenable to change were associated with a history of child injury. Further study is needed to assess the use of safe and unsafe behavior as proxy measures for injuries and to identify functional classes of safe and unsafe behavior for which active strategies can be developed to prevent children's injuries. Language: en