Computer technology that provides parents with customized
safety information can be an
effective way to help their children avoid injury, according to a
study by researchers at the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health and the Johns Hopkins
Children's Center.
Parents who received safety information tailored to their
family's specific circumstances were
significantly more likely to follow safety recommendations
compared to parents who received general
information. The study is published in the August edition of the
journal Pediatrics.
"Injuries are the leading cause of death for children in the
United States. We have effective
ways to prevent injuries, like smoke detectors and car safety
seats, but many families, especially low-
income families, remain unprotected," said Andrea Carlson Gielen,
lead author of the study and
director of the
Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Bloomberg
School. "Our study shows that
parents respond best when safety messages are tailored to their
specific needs and beliefs."
The randomized controlled trial of the Safety in Seconds
program involved 759 parents of
children ages 4 to 66 months. The participants used a computer
kiosk set up in the Emergency
Department of the Children's Center to answer a series of
questions about their children, their own
experiences and personal beliefs about safety. After parents
completed the questionnaire, the
computer generated a personalized safety report based on their
responses. The control group
received a generic health report.
The researchers conducted follow-up interviews with the
parents two to four weeks later to
see how they responded to the safety messages. According to the
results, the parents who received
the customized safety reports scored significantly higher on
knowledge of smoke alarm use and safe
poison storage; they were also more likely to report correct
child safety seat use. Ninety-three
percent of the intervention parents said they read at least some
of the safety report, and 57 percent
said they read the entire report. Lower-income parents who read
the tailored reports were more likely
to store poisons in the home safely compared to the control
group. Higher-income parents in the
intervention group were more likely to report correct child
safety seat use than the control group
parents. The intervention was equally effective for those with
injured children and those who were
being seen for a medical problem.
"Every year, millions of families visit an emergency
department, providing an important
opportunity to deliver injury prevention services. We are
encouraged by these results, which suggest
that computer technology holds promise for efficiently delivering
patient education in busy health
care settings," said Allen R. Walker, co-author of the study and
director of Emergency Medicine for
the Children's Center.
Additional authors of the study are Lara B. McKenzie, Eileen
M. McDonald, Mei-Cheng Wang,
Yu-Jen Cheng, Nancy L. Weaver and Allen R. Walker. Weaver is with
the St. Louis University School of
Public Health, and McKenzie is with the Columbus Children's
Research Institute at Columbus Children's
Hospital.