Objectives

To evaluate the effectiveness of a car seat class in increasing parental knowledge about child passenger safety.

Methodology

Child car seat classes were held at a Level 1 pediatric trauma center every other Tuesday for ten months. The curriculum consisted of a child passenger safety laws discussion, a 21-min video on the use of child safety seats followed by a 15-min discussion about the video, 15 min of discussing the different types of car seats, and hands-on training on how to properly install and use child restraints. Free car seats were provided to eligible parents. A pre-test was administered at the beginning of class and a post-test at the end of the class.

Key Findings

• Child passenger restraint systems greatly reduce the risk of injury and death among child passengers, but nearly half of the children who died in 2009 as a result of motor vehicle crashes were completely unrestrained.

• Our global hypothesis is that parents and other caregivers failed to restrain children due to a lack of child passenger seat education and practice

• In this report, we postulate that a car seat class will improve the basic understanding of child passenger safety.

• Forty-four classes were held, attended by a total of 491 parents and caregivers.

• An increase in knowledge was found for all survey questions.

• Mean knowledge score for the post-test was 3.10 points higher compared to the mean knowledge score from the pre-test.

• Mean difference in knowledge scores for English-speaking participants were higher than Spanish-speaking participants.

• The results of the current study demonstrate an increase in knowledge post-intervention. Similar hospital-based education and seat distribution interventions also found an increase in knowledge post-intervention.

• Previous investigators found that an educational video can increase the use and knowledge of child passenger safety seats, however, our results demonstrated a higher difference in mean scores (2.52 point increase) between the pre- and post-tests.

• Videos in a hospital waiting room area are a passive method of using an educational video. Our video was shown in a class specific for child passenger safety education, during which parents might have paid more attention to the video.

• Our video was also followed by a discussion about the video’s content, which might have resulted in greater retention and comprehension of the video’s messages.

• Booster seat use and knowledge also increased significantly post-intervention in this study.

• Our results are consistent with similar studies, however, we believe that incorporating additional types of interactive and hands-on teaching methods may boost a gain in knowledge among the class participants.

• This intervention was effective at increasing parental knowledge about child passenger safety.

• The results of this study may be used to design and implement future interventions in multicultural settings

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