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Validation of two child passenger safety questionnaires
Lisa Uherick1, Marc H Gorelick, Robert Biechler
1Carilion Clinic, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Roanoke, Virginia, USA. luherick@carilion.com
Insights
Child passenger safety questionnaires for booster seats and car seats are valid and reliable for future research. These tools accurately assess child restraint use, aiding in safety studies.
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.
Objective:
To measure the validity of a booster seat questionnaire and a car seat questionnaire so that they can be reliably used in future trials.
Design:
The two child passenger safety questionnaires were created. Each underwent expert review to ensure face and content validity. Two reliability studies were conducted independently of each other. Care givers for children who were cared for in a paediatric emergency department were enrolled. Criterion validity was tested by direct observation, and inter-rater reliability was measured. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency were also measured on the booster seat questionnaire.
Results:
Booster seat questionnaire: test-retest agreement was good, with 16 of the 18 questions having agreement of at least 80%. Agreement was acceptable (>70%) in all other questions in which agreement was expected when the answers of two different care givers were compared. All care givers were able to report booster seat use as it was found on direct observation, yielding a κ value of 1. Car seat questionnaire: the respondents showed 95% agreement between their reported type of child safety restraint and what was found on direct observation. Inter-rater agreement for the type of safety restraint was 77% or a κ value of 0.7.
Conclusion:
Both the booster seat questionnaire and the car seat questionnaire are valid and can be reliably used in future studies. The findings of this study need to be verified with larger studies and different populations.
