Safety Skills Training For Parents of Preschool Children

Parents viewed child car seat and booster seat situations and were asked whether 9 car safety seat and 7 booster seat items were correct or incorrect. Parents also viewed 2 bicycle helmet situations and were asked to identify if these were correct or incorrect.

An injury prevention knowledge scale was created across all content areas. The injury prevention knowledge scale contained 41 items (e.g., "The best way to lessen the possibility of a young child choking …") for parents of younger children and 44-items for parents of older children. The injury prevention knowledge scale represents the percent of items correctly endorsed.

An injury prevention attitudes & beliefs scale was created across all content areas (e.g., "It is never ok to use a second hand car seat even if you know the car seat has never been involved in a crash."). Thirty-four items assessed attitudes & beliefs for parents of younger children and 33-items for parents of older children (alpha = .85 for both younger and older children). All items were assessed using a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

An injury prevention self-efficacy scale was created from 36 items across all content areas for the parents of younger children and 35 items for parents of older (e.g., "I am confident that I know the safest way to store guns and ammunition") (alpha = .77 for younger children and .89 for older children.) All items were assessed using a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

Three items were used to assess knowledge of car safety injury prevention (e.g., "Your child should use a forward-facing safety seat until…") with the response coded as either 0 = incorrect or 1 = correct.

Two items were used to assess attitudes and beliefs towards car safety injury prevention (e.g., "It is never ok to use a second car seat even if you know the car seat has never been involved in a crash"). Both items were assessed with a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Both of the attitudes & beliefs items for the car safety attitudes content area were discarded because the wording proved confusing to participants.

Four items were used to assess self-efficacy in performing car safety injury prevention skills (e.g., "How confident are you that you know when to transition your child into a booster seat?"). Items were assessed with a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = not at all confident and 5 = extremely confident.

Two items were used to assess knowledge of wheeled sports injury prevention (e.g., "A child carrier bike seat should…") with the response coded as either 0 = incorrect or 1 = correct.

Four items were used to assess attitudes & beliefs towards wheeled sports safety injury prevention (e.g., "It is extremely important for my child to wear a helmet whenever riding his or her bike"). Items were assessed with a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

Three items were used to assess self-efficacy in performing wheeled sports injury prevention skills (e.g., "How confident are you that you know how to correctly check the fit of your child's helmet?"). Items were assessed with a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = not at all confident and 5 = extremely confident.