Belt-Positioning Booster Seats for Children: National Perspectives from Emergency Physicians and Parents
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2011-02-14
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Abstract:Motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) remain a leading cause of death among children and result in more than 130,000 visits to US Emergency Departments (EDs) each year. Deaths and severe injuries sustained by child occupants in MVCs are overwhelmingly preventable through the correct and consistent use of child passenger restraints. However, child passenger restraint use remains below Healthy People 2020 Objective levels. Nearly one-fifth of 1- to 3-year-olds and one-third of 4- to 7-year-olds are prematurely placed in a booster seat or seat belt and 10% of children ride completely unrestrained. Overcoming the persistent problem of inadequate restraint use among child passengers requires better understanding of the practical barriers to recommended booster seat use faced by parents and exploration of novel clinical settings in which to promote child passenger safety such as the ED. In this two part study, we sought to examine the association between carpooling frequency and booster seat use among parents and to determine emergency physician perspectives related to child passenger safety within the field of emergency medicine. We conducted national surveys with 1) a sample of 693 parents of 4- to 8-year-old children regarding child passenger restraint use and experiences with booster seat use when carpooling and 2) a sample of 1200 emergency physicians regarding their attitudes and practices related to child passenger safety during MVC-related ED visits. In the parent survey, we found carpooling is a common practice during which booster seat use is lower than usual child passenger restraint use. In the physician survey, we found that respondents view a role for themselves in promoting child passenger safety; however their responses suggest substantial opportunities exist to increase the frequency with which parents receive child passenger safety messages during an ED visit following an MVC.
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