An emergency department intervention to improve knowledge of child passenger safety

The objective of the study was to test the impact of an educational video in improving child passenger safety knowledge.

This was a prospective randomized study performed in the emergency department of an urban children's hospital involving parents of non-critically ill children younger than 9 years. Parents were randomized to observe a video on child passenger safety or comparison group. All completed a survey, 8-question pretest at enrollment, and posttest after 1 month and received written safety materials at discharge. The outcome measure to test knowledge was the difference in mean pretest-posttest scores on a questionnaire.

We enrolled 274 parents (137 intervention, 137 comparison). Thirty subjects were found ineligible for analysis after enrollment because their children were outside the age range for inclusion. Analysis was restricted to 131 parents in the intervention group and 113 in the comparison group. No significant differences existed between groups when comparing demographics and child passenger safety characteristics except for the number of children in the household. After excluding those lost to follow-up (91 parents) and who dropped out (14 parents), analysis was restricted to 74 subjects in the intervention group and 65 in the comparison group. Mean pretest scores were as follows: intervention, 4.95 (SD, 1.49); comparison, 5.12 (SD, 1.32). Mean posttest scores were as follows: intervention, 5.24 (SD,1.60); comparison, 4.77 (SD, 1.39). Difference in mean pretest-posttest scores showed a significant improvement in the intervention group compared with the comparison group: 0.65 (95% confidence interval, 0.14-1.16) on independent-samples t test (P = 0.012).

Child passenger safety education can be effectively imparted to parents in the emergency department.