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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Andrea C. Gielen, ScD, ScM¹, Lara B. Trifiletti, PhD, MA², Eileen M. McDonald, MS¹, Wendy C. Shields, MPH³, Yu-Jen Cheng⁴, Mei-cheng Wang, PhD⁴, Allen R. Walker, MD⁵, and Nancy Weaver, PhD, MS⁶. (1) Health, Behavior & Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, 7th floor, Baltimore, MD 21205, 410-955-2397, agielen@jhsph.edu, (2) Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University, Columbus Children's Research Center, 700 Children's Drive, Columbus, OH 43205, (3) Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, 5th floor, Baltimore, MD 21205, (4) Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Wolfe Street, E3614, Baltimore, MD 21205, (5) Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, CMSC 144 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287-3144, (6) Health Communications Research Laboratory, St. Louis University, 3545 Lafayette Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104

Children make more than 30 million visits to emergency departments every year. This setting may offer opportunities for injury prevention. We evaluated the use of a computer kiosk intervention for low income, low literacy parents.

Methods: Parents (N=760) of young children (0-5yrs) being seen in a Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) for either an injury or medical complaint completed a baseline assessment at a computer kiosk. They were randomly assigned to receive one of two computer-generated reports: 1) a personalized safety report containing tailored, stage-based safety messages (intervention group) based on Weinstein's Precaution Adoption Process Model or 2) a report on other topics (control group). Follow-up interviews were conducted by telephone 2-4 weeks later.

Results: Virtually all (98.4%) intervention parents remembered receiving the report, 92.9% read at least some of it, 57.3% read it all, 68.1% discussed it with others. The intervention group was significantly more likely to report correct car seat use (OR=1.32, 95% CI=1.03, 1.72), and slightly more likely to have a working smoke alarm on all levels (OR=1.23, 95% CI=.85, 1.78) and storing poisons safely (OR=1.11, 95% CI=.81, 1.52). Intervention parents who read and discussed the report were significantly (p<.05) more likely than controls to practice each of the three safety behaviors (O.R.=1.74, 1.92, 2.17 respectively); effects remained significant with adjustment for potential confounders. Neither parental anxiety nor child's reason for PED visit modified effects.

Conclusions: Computer technology and tailored messages can be effectively used for injury prevention in pediatric emergency departments serving low income, low literacy families.

Learning Objectives:

• analyze the pros and cons of delivering injury prevention in pediatric emergency departments
• evaluate the effectiveness of computer tailored, stage based messages to promote child safety
• determine the feasibility and effectiveness of computer kiosks for communicating with low literacy, urban populations

Keywords: Injury Prevention, Communication Technology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No