Abstract
BackgroundChild safety restraints are effective measures in protecting children from an injury while traveling in a car. However, the rate of child restraint use is extremely low in Chinese cities. Parent drivers could play an important role in promoting child safety restraint use, but not all of them take active responsibility.MethodsThis study used a qualitative approach and included 14 in-depth interviews among parents with a child, under the age of 6, living in Shantou City (7 child safety restraint users and 7 non-users). Purposive sampling was used to recruit eligible parent drivers who participated in a previous observation study. Interview data were collected from March to April 2013. The audio taped and transcribed data were coded and analyzed to identify key themes.ResultsFour key themes on child safety restraint emerged from the in-depth interviews with parents. These included 1) Having a child safety restraint installed in the rear seat with an adult sitting next to the restrained child is ideal, and child safety restraint is seen as an alternative when adult accompaniment is not available; 2) Having effective parental education strategies could help make a difference in child safety restraint use; 3) Inadequate promotion and parents’ poor safety awareness contribute to the low rate of child safety restraint in China; 4) Mandatory legislation on child safety restraint use could be an effective approach.ConclusionInadequate promotion and low awareness of safe traveling by parents were closely linked to low child safety seat usage under the circumstance of no mandatory legislation. Future intervention efforts need to focus on increasing parents’ safe travel awareness combined with CSS product promotion before the laws are enacted.
Highlights
Child safety restraints are effective measures in protecting children from an injury while traveling in a car
Interview guide development Guided by the Health Belief Model, the principles of a qualitative methodological approach, existing published literature on child safety seat (CSS) [7,10,11], and the findings from our previous observational study, the interview guide was developed for inclusion of both parents of CSS users, and parents of CSS non-users who had resistance to using CSS
In addition to demographic questions, the final interview guide was comprised of four sets of questions and probes, including: perception of child safety while traveling in a car, attitude towards CSS, facilitating factors and/ or barriers associated with use or non-use, and opinions on future effective intervention strategies to promote use
Summary
Child safety restraints are effective measures in protecting children from an injury while traveling in a car. The rate of child restraint use is extremely low in Chinese cities. Motor vehicles crashes are one of the leading causes of death in children from birth to 14 years of age worldwide [1]. Drowning and traffic crashes are the top two causes of early childhood injury deaths in China [2,3]. Each year in China, roughly 100,000 people are killed in road traffic crashes [4]. Children, aged 1 to 20 years, account for more than 12 percent of total road traffic deaths [5]. Child safety seat (CSS) use in China is extremely
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