Injury prevention in children: Increasing booster seat compliance through the use of appeal

Children prematurely placed in seatbelts while riding in automobiles are at increased risk for injury and death. This study used various interventions to increase booster seat usage, including a traditional didactic intervention for parents, an intervention involving the use of reward for children, didactic intervention for children, and a novel appeal raising intervention for children. These interventions were evaluated for both relative and additive effectiveness. Manipulated variables were audience to receive information (parent only or parent and child), use of child reward, and type of information given to child (appeal or no appeal). Children's booster seat usage was observed arriving to and leaving school at pre-intervention, post-intervention, one-month follow-up, and two-month follow-up. Analysis of covariance was used to assess the main effect of intervention type, and it was found that the audience receiving the booster seat information was an important variable. The conditions in which children received information about booster seats increased their booster seat usage to a greater extent at immediate post-intervention and one month follow-up than the conditions in which children did not receive information. Analyses of variance were used to analyze differences in pre-, post-, and follow-up data within each condition, and increases in booster seat usage were found in conditions in which children received information. Results inform community wide interventions to increase children's automobile safety, as well as add to the existing knowledge base regarding increasing children's perceptions of appeal.