Citation

Smith GA, Chounthirath T, Splaingard M. J. Pediatr. 2019; 205: 250-256.e1.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH; Sleep Disorders Center, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.09.027

PMID

30482491

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To test maternal voice alarm effectiveness under residential conditions and determine whether personalizing the maternal voice alarm message with the child's first name improves effectiveness. STUDY DESIGN: Using a randomized, nonblinded, repeated measures design, we compared 3 maternal voice smoke alarms with respect to their ability to awaken 176 children 5-12 years old from stage 4 slow-wave sleep and prompt their performance of an escape procedure. A conventional residential high-frequency tone smoke alarm was used as a comparative reference. Children's sleep stage was monitored in a residence-like research setting.

RESULTS: Maternal voice alarms awakened 86%-91% of children and prompted 84%-86% to escape compared with 53% awakened and 51% escaped for the tone alarm. A sleeping child was 2.9-3.4 times more likely to be awakened by each of the 3 voice alarms than the tone alarm. The median time to awaken was 156 seconds for the tone alarm and 2 seconds for each voice alarm. The proportions of children who awakened and escaped differed significantly between the tone alarm and each voice alarm, but no significant differences were found between each pair of the voice alarms, regardless of whether the child's first name was included in the alarm message.

CONCLUSIONS: The maternal voice alarms significantly outperformed the tone alarm under residential conditions. Personalizing the alarm message with the child's first name did not increase alarm effectiveness. These findings have important implications for development of an effective and practical smoke alarm for children. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01169155.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

burns; fire; injury; prevention; sleep; smoke; trauma