Validation of two child passenger safety questionnaires

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Emergency Medicine
• Public Health
• Transportation Safety

Background:

• Child passenger safety is crucial, necessitating reliable tools to assess the correct use of car seats and booster seats.
• Existing questionnaires may lack validated measures for accuracy in real-world settings.
• Accurate data collection is vital for evaluating the effectiveness of child restraint systems and informing safety interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish the validity and reliability of a booster seat questionnaire.
• To establish the validity and reliability of a car seat questionnaire.
• To ensure these tools can be confidently utilized in future child passenger safety research and trials.

Main Methods:

• Two questionnaires (booster seat and car seat) were developed and underwent expert review for face and content validity.
• Criterion validity was assessed by comparing questionnaire responses to direct observations of child restraint use.
• Reliability was evaluated through test-retest measures, internal consistency, and inter-rater agreement among caregivers.

Main Results:

• The booster seat questionnaire demonstrated good test-retest agreement (≥80% for 16/18 questions) and perfect agreement (κ=1) with direct observation of booster seat use.
• The car seat questionnaire showed 95% agreement with direct observation for the reported type of child safety restraint.
• Inter-rater agreement for the car seat questionnaire was 77% (κ=0.7), indicating acceptable reliability.

Conclusions:

• Both the booster seat and car seat questionnaires are validated and reliable instruments for use in future studies.
• These validated tools can enhance the accuracy of data collection in child passenger safety research.
• Further validation in larger and diverse populations is recommended to confirm generalizability.