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Affiliation
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Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA; Brown Medical School, Providence, RI; Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI; Hasbro Children's Hospital, Providence, RI, USA. |
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Abstract
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of conference presentation:
Study objectives: Since the introduction of miniature nonmotorized scooters in 1999, emergency departments (EDs) have seen a dramatic rise in injuries related to their use. Taking advantage of the influence that media has on education, the Rhode Island American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) chapter, with funding from ACEP, produced a video on scooter safety. The objective of this study is to evaluate the scooter safety knowledge of children aged 8 to 14 years and their parents presenting to an urban pediatric ED and to determine whether the children's knowledge of scooter safety improves after viewing the scooter safety video. A second objective is to determine whether improved knowledge of scooter safety results in parental report of a change in behavior.
Methods: The study population was a convenience sample of children aged 8 to 14 years (patients and their siblings) at an urban pediatric ED waiting area and treatment area during June 2002. A brief survey consisting of demographic information, baseline information on the participants' use of wheeled sporting equipment, and questions on their knowledge of scooter safety assessed before and after viewing the video was given to patients. Parents were also given a short survey. In addition, parents were asked for their consent to receive a follow-up telephone call 5 months after completing the survey to reassess their children's scooter use and safety equipment use. Participants were given a small compensation (value less than $3) for completion of the survey and follow-up telephone call. The Rhode Island Hospital institutional review board approved the research protocol.
Results: The study included 50 participants. There were 24 girls and 26 boys. The age range was 8 to 14 years, with a mean age of 10.4 years. Within the study
group, 86.0% of patients reported riding a bicycle, and 86.0% reported riding a scooter. For participants who ride a bike, 69.8% indicated that they wear a helmet while riding a bike. However, only 44.2% of scooter riders reported using a helmet while riding their scooter. Parents and children were asked about the existence of a helmet law with a true/false question. Eighty-eight percent of parents correctly answered that this law exists, but only 27.5% reported that their children always wear their gear. Seventy-two percent of the children correctly answered the question, but only 27.5% reported that they always wear their gear. Children were asked to circle the properly fitting helmet (pictures provided by the Consumer Product Safety Commission [CPSC]). Before viewing the video, 74.0% of children were able to circle the properly fitting helmet. After viewing the video, 100% of children were able to circle the properly fitting helmet. Participants were also asked to identify the recommended safety gear to be worn while riding a scooter. A correct answer required the child to circle all recommended gear (helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads). Before watching the video, 60.0% of participants identified all the recommended gear. After watching the video, this number increased to 82.0% (P=.001). Twenty-one of the fifty participants completed the follow-up questions. Of these, 15 children rode a scooter at the initial survey and at the follow-up. On the initial parent survey, 33.3% of these parents reported that their children always wore their scooter safety gear. This number increased to 86.7% at follow-up.
Conclusion: The CPSC reports that there were more than 84,400 ED visits for scooter-related injuries in 2001 and 16 deaths from scooters in the same year (www.cpsc.gov/PR/prscoot.html). Eighty-five percent of the injuries were in children younger than 15 years. The CPSC has established several recommendations for the safe use of scooters (www.cpsc.gov). Scooter use is high within our study population, but helmet use with scooters is lower than that with bikes. The improvement in correct answers to scooter safety questions after the scooter safety video was viewed indicates that the video is effective in improving scooter safety knowledge in the study population. In addition, the results of the follow-up telephone survey suggest that an increase in scooter safety awareness leads to a change in scooter-riding behavior. Limitations to this study include the small sample size. In addition, non-English speaking parents and children were excluded from the study because the video and study forms were not available in other languages. We did not control for ED diagnosis, and patients with injuries may be more receptive to this subject in the ED. We did not compare it with other educational methods on this subject. Our pilot data showed that the scooter safety video is effective in teaching scooter safety. |