SafeSmart safety seat intervention project: A successful program for the medically-indigent

doi:10.1016/0738-3991(89)90058-X

Patient Education and Counseling

Volume 13, Issue 2, April 1989, Pages 161-170

https://doi.org/10.1016/0738-3991(89)90058-X Get rights and content

Abstract

A study to determine the effect of an educational intervention on the prevalence of safety seat usage in a population of low income mothers was conducted in six randomly selected outpatient care centers in Maricopa County for a period of 1 year. These six centers were subjected to either a control or intervention treatment. Outpatient care centers which were assigned to the intervention treatment received a planned, educational intervention employing coercive, incentive, education and reinforcement approaches. The data indicated that the application of a health education intervention employing a combination of approaches significantly decreased the safety seat non-usage rate from 74.9% to 62.3%, while the rate in the control group remained stable. It was also found that continued health education beyond the 6-month period would not affect the safety seat usage rate significantly. The results of this study point to the potential of an organized, patient education program in positively affecting safety seat usage among children of low income parents in an outpatient setting.

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Baby, Be Safe: The effect of tailored communications for pediatric injury prevention provided in a primary care setting
2002, Patient Education and Counseling
Injuries are a major cause of morbidity and mortality to young children. The provision of individually tailored educational materials in primary care settings may be an effective and efficient way to promote adoption of injury prevention measures by parents. A randomized controlled study compared the effectiveness of tailored and generic persuasive communications delivered in a primary care setting on the adoption of home and car safety behaviors. During routine well-child visits, a primarily African–American sample of parents of children ages 6–20 months (n=213) was randomized to receive either tailored or generic information regarding the prevention of injuries to their child. At follow-up, participants who received tailored information reported greater adoption of home and car safety behaviors than those receiving generic information. In addition, within the tailored information group, those who discussed the information with their physician showed significantly greater change than those who did not. However, this difference was not observed among those receiving generic information. Findings support the use of office-based tailored injury prevention education as a component of routine well-child care.
Reviews of evidence regarding interventions to increase use of child safety seats
2001, American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Background: In 1998, nearly 600 child occupants of motor vehicles aged younger than 4 years died in motor vehicle crashes. Yet approximately 29% of children aged 4 years and younger do not ride in appropriate child safety seat restraints, which, when correctly installed and used, reduce the need for hospitalization in this age group by 69% and the risk of death by approximately 70% for infants and by 47% to 54% for toddlers (aged 1 to 4 years).
Methods: The systematic review development team reviewed the scientific evidence of effectiveness for five interventions to increase child safety seat use. For each intervention, changes in the use of child safety seats or injury rates were the outcome measures evaluated to determine the success of the intervention. Database searching was concluded in March 1998. More than 3500 citations were screened; of these citations, 72 met the inclusion criteria for the reviews.
Results: The systematic review process identified strong evidence of effectiveness for child safety seat laws and distribution plus education programs. In addition, community-wide information plus enhanced enforcement campaigns and incentive plus education programs had sufficient evidence of effectiveness. Insufficient evidence was identified for education-only programs aimed at parents, young children, healthcare professionals, or law enforcement personnel.
Conclusions: Evidence is available about the effectiveness of four of the five interventions we reviewed. This scientific evidence, along with the accompanying recommendations of the Task Force elsewhere in this supplement, can be a powerful tool for securing the resources and commitment required to implement these strategies.
Effectiveness of health promotion programs to increase motor vehicle occupant restraint use among young children
1999, American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Objective: To review the effectiveness of nonlegislative community and clinical programs to increase the rate of child motor vehicle occupant restraint use among children under the age of 5 years.
Method: This was a systematic review of the world’s published literature. The Cochrane Collaboration protocol was used to conduct the literature search. The following databases were searched for literature on this topic: MEDLINE, EMBASE, NTIS, PsychINFO, ERIC, Nursing and Allied Health, Transportation Research and Information Service, and EI Compendex. The bibliographies of relevant publications were used to search for additional references.
Selection Criteria: Studies were included if they evaluated a clinical or community-based intervention designed to increase the use child restraint devices among motor vehicle passengers under the age of 5 years. Studies of the effects of legislation or law enforcement programs were excluded. All study design types, including randomized controlled trials, controlled trials, and controlled or uncontrolled pre/post evaluations, were included. Studies were excluded if there was either no control group or no baseline data with which to compare outcome data. Studies were also excluded if they did not use observed restraint use as at least one of the outcome measures.
Data Collection: Each study was reviewed in depth with special attention to the strength of study design. Outcomes were assessed in terms of the absolute difference in observed restraint use within and/or between groups across study intervals.
Results: A total of 18 studies met inclusion criteria for in-depth review. Pooling of results was not possible because of the large differences between studies with regard to study design, settings, target groups, intervention methods, and units of analysis. There were a total of three randomized controlled trials, four controlled trials without random individual or group assignment, three controlled pre-post evaluations, and eight uncontrolled pre/post studies. Among preschool programs, short-term absolute percentage point gains in seat belt use rates ranged from 12% to 52% but only from 8% to 14% one month or more after the intervention. Among community-based media campaigns, long-term child restraint use increased by an absolute margin of 5% to 14%. Of the eleven peri-partum counseling programs, long-term follow-up revealed gains of 6% to 27% with most between 10% to 15%. Many studies had serious design flaws that could overestimate the magnitude of the effect.
Conclusions: Programs to increase the rate of child restraint use among child occupants of motor vehicles appear to have overall moderate short-term effectiveness. The magnitude of the positive program effects one or more months after the intervention appear to diminish substantially. There is a strong need for high quality randomized controlled trials to determine the long-term effectiveness of child restraint promotion programs.
Learning from special populations
1989, Patient Education and Counseling
Patient education for Hispanic Americans
1989, Patient Education and Counseling
Hispanic Americans are the second largest minority in the United States, and this population is growing rapidly. Given that there are some important differences between Hispanic culture and mainstream U.S. culture, providing effective patient education to Hispanics requires being aware of their special characteristics and needs. Only limited information is now available about Hispanic Americans. In this paper, some of the data and their implications for patient education are presented and discussed. For example, Hispanic Americans are not receiving the health care services they need and want, so patient educators will probably need to reach out to them. Morbidity and mortality data and risk prevalence data are examined with an eye toward identifying health problems that are likely to need attention when caring for this population. The available literature is reviewed and suggestions are offered for providing effective patient education to Hispanics. Much more needs to be learned about the Hispanic Americans. Patient educators who have been working with Hispanics need to report on their efforts, and, if the lack of literature on patient education programs for Hispanics reflects a shortage of programs for Hispanics, this situation also needs to be remedied.
Effectiveness of road safety interventions: An evidence and gap map
2024, Campbell Systematic Reviews

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Current perspectivesSafeSmart safety seat intervention project: A successful program for the medically-indigent

Abstract

Committee on Trauma Research

Effectiveness and Efficiency of Safety Belt and Child Restraint Usage Programs

Restraint System Usage in the Traffic Population

Progress Report on Contracts DNTH -22-82-C-07126 and DNTH -22-84-C-07264

Children's Seat Belt Usage: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey

Am J Public Health

Automobile injury — selected risk factors and prevention in the health care setting

JAMA

Accident prevention and health education: back to the drawing board?

Pediatrics

Promoting the use of seat belts

Br Med J

Child automobile restraints: evaluation of health education

Pediatrics

Current perspectives
SafeSmart safety seat intervention project: A successful program for the medically-indigent