The use of child safety seats: A survey on levels of knowledge and attitudes of university employees

Abstract

Objectives: Child safety seats are the best practice for protecting child occupants. In western world, a significant re-duction of child deaths in motor vehicle crashes has occurred over the past years. However, the use of child safety seats will be obligatory in Turkey from 2010 onwards. We aimed to determine the prevalence of safety seat use and survey the opinions of parents about children safety seat use in traffic. Materials and methods: A survey was conducted in Kars province of Turkey. A questionnaire was handed out to par-ents who were employees in a university. The first part of questionnaire was concerned with the personal properties of participants. The second part was designed to evaluate the level of parents' knowledge on child safety seat. Results: Of the 600 questionnaires distributed, 516 (86%) were returned and included in the final analysis. This study showed that 266 participants were having children and automobile. The ownership of child safety seat was only 13.5% among them. The parents reported that the lack of knowledge about child safety seats was the main reason for not having safety seats. Majority of parents stated that they would be more careful in the future about child safety in traf-fic. Conclusion: This study showed that most parents were uninformed about the necessity of child safety seats. The au-thorities have to develop new strategies to increase the rate of child safety seat use.