title: Evaluation of a child passenger safety class in increasing parental knowledge.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Child passenger restraint systems have been found to greatly reduce the risk of injury and death among child passengers. However, 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. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a car seat class in increasing parental knowledge about child passenger safety.
  
  
  METHODS
  Car seat classes were held at a Level 1 pediatric trauma center every other Tuesday for ten months. The curriculum consisted of: 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, 15min 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. The pre-test was administered at the beginning of class and the post-test at the end of the class. McNemar's test and a paired t-test were used to compare pre- and post-test scores. Test scores were also stratified by language spoken.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Forty-four classes were held and a total of 491 parents/caregivers attended the classes. 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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Lack of knowledge and low risk perception have frequently been cited as barriers for the use of child passenger restraints. Our intervention attempted to eliminate these barriers. We found that 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Valerie M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Muller
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States; Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1975 Zonal Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Rita V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Arbogast
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Perla C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Ruiz
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Nellie M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Nunez
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Katherine R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: San Mateo
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cazzulino
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States; Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1975 Zonal Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, United States. Electronic address: jupperman@chla.usc.edu.
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Upperman
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D001334:Automobile Driving; D057207:Child Restraint Systems; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents / Q000193:education*; D012449:Safety; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control*
keywords: Child passenger safety; Child restraints; Intervention