Citation

Shields WC, McDonald EM, McKenzie LB, Wang MC, Walker AR, Gielen AC. Pediatr. Emerg. Care 2013; 29(5): 628-634.

Affiliation

From the *Center for Injury Research and Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD; †Center for Injury Research and Policy, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH; ‡Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and §Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/PEC.0b013e31828e9cd2

PMID

23603653

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a computer kiosk intervention on parents' self-reported safety knowledge as well as observed child safety seat, smoke alarm use, and safe poison storage and to compare self-reported versus observed behaviors. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial with 720 parents of young children (4 months to 5 years) was conducted in the pediatric emergency department of a level 1 pediatric trauma center. Enrolled parents received tailored safety information (intervention) or generic information (control) from a computer kiosk after completing a safety assessment. Parents were telephoned 4 to 6 months after the intervention to assess self-reported safety knowledge and behaviors; in-home observations were made 1 week after the telephone interview for a subset of 100 randomly selected participants. Positive and negative predictive values were compared between the intervention and control groups. RESULTS: The intervention group had significantly higher smoke alarm (82% vs 78%) and poison storage (83% vs 78%) knowledge scores. The intervention group was more likely to report correct child safety seat use (odds ratio, 1.36; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-1.77; P = 0.02). Observed safety behaviors were lower than self-reported use for both groups. No differences were found between groups for positive or negative predictive values. CONCLUSIONS: These results add to the limited literature on the impact of computer tailoring home safety information. Knowledge gains were evident 4 months after intervention. Discrepancies between observed and self-reported behavior are concerning because the quality of a tailored intervention depends on the accuracy of participant self-reporting. Improved measures should be developed to encourage accurate reporting of safety behaviors.

Language: en