OA20119. A distribution, education, and awareness intervention for child passenger safety in Lebanon

Abstract Background The Eastern Mediterranean Region suffers disproportionately from paediatric traffic-related injuries. Despite governmental laws, Lebanon—an Eastern Mediterranean Country—has low child restraint (CR) use prevalence. This study examined the impact of using car seat distribution, and child passenger safety education and awareness intervention to improve child passenger safety knowledge and practices among caregivers. Methods This study recruited Lebanese caregivers with one child or more, using a 4-wheel motor vehicle, and not using a car seat. The intervention comprised an educational session followed by a car seat or booster seat distribution and installation check by a certified child passenger safety technician. A baseline assessment questionnaire was used to identify reasons for prior CR non-use. A child passenger safety knowledge test was administered before, immediately after and 3 months post-intervention to assess child passenger safety knowledge retention and compare it to the baseline using the conditional logit model for pre–post interventions. Results Fifty-eight participants underwent the intervention. Affordability was identified as the primary reason for car seat non-use. Three months after the intervention, compliance with CRs use was reported at 100%, and correct responses on the knowledge test significantly increased (p < 0.05) for all items except for harness tightness (p = 0.673). Conclusions Our child passenger safety intervention resulted in improved knowledge and increased self-reported use of CRs in a caregivers’ cohort in Lebanon. Further efforts should address sociocultural and economic barriers and the lack of local child passenger safety technicians to mitigate the region’s paediatric road traffic injury and death toll. Key messages • Our study shows that a distribution plus education intervention facilitated by a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician can effectively improve caregiver-child passenger safety knowledge and restraint use in a low-income and middle-income country with low overall compliance with restraint laws and use. • A distribution plus education intervention aimed at raising awareness, improving knowledge, and increasing the use of child passenger safety restraint systems received high receptivity among caregivers in a low- and middle-income country with a very low baseline use of vehicle restraint systems. Topic Child road safety, motor vehicle - occupant, vehicle restraint systems.