Objectives: Compare children’s reported use and attitudes towards bike helmets with parental use, attitudes, and knowledge of child’s use.
Methods: Setting: Urban public school system in state with an established mandatory children's bicycle helmet law. Design: Cross-sectional survey of 819 school aged children (grades 3-8) and their parents selected by a randomized, multi-stage sampling procedure. Family pairs were pre-matched by unique identifiers and surveyed independently with self-administered questionnaire.
Results: Of 819 matched pairs, non-bicycle riding children (n=66) and incomplete family pairs (n=4) were excluded from analysis. Concordance between 749 parent-child pairs was assessed using the kappa statistic and c 2 test.
|
Question |
% Yes |
Stats |
Concordance |
|
|
Kids |
Parents |
|||
|
Does child wear a helmet? |
68.0 |
74.9 |
0.582* |
Good |
|
Did child wear a helmet the last time he/she rode a bike? |
55.7 |
66.7 |
0.578* |
Good |
|
Is there a helmet law where you live? |
52.4 |
75.4 |
0.214* |
Poor |
|
How often did you wear a helmet in the last month: most of the time? never? |
59.6 21.5 |
41.1 43.4 |
33.9** 21.2** |
Poor Poor |
*Kappa (p <.0001) ** ; c 2 (p <.0001)
Most surveyed children (89%) and parents (98%) agreed that bicycle helmet laws are "good" (agreement=88%).
Conclusions: Parents generally overestimated helmet use by children. Concordance in reported helmet use between parents and children was good. While both groups agreed "bike helmets laws are good", children are poorly informed about state bicycle helmet law. Selection bias may have contributed to overall high rates of reported helmet use.
Learning Objectives: Describe agreement in helmet usage between parents and their children. Describe differences in helmet law awareness between parents and their children. Understand the proportion of school aged children likely to have bicycle related injury
Keywords: Bike Helmets, Children
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.