Intervention To Increase Seat Belt Use At A Primary Care Center

Abstract

Background: Increasing seat belt use represents an ideal opportunity for preventive health care in family practice. Little evidence exists, however, that primary care physicians can increase safety belt use.

Methods: Three hundred twenty-six patients seen in a rural primary care center were randomized to either a control or intervention group. Before their health care examination, patients completed a short questionnaire concerning seat belt use and then viewed a 6-minute videotape explaining reasons to wear seat belts (intervention) or espousing general preventive health care guidelines with no mention of seat belts (control). In 6 months the questionnaire was again administered with no further intervention.

Results: Two hundred forty-three (74.5 percent) patients completed both baseline and 6-month questionnaires. Seat belt use increased significantly from baseline to 6 months for the intervention (22 to 37.3 percent, P = 0.00052) and control (20 to 33.6 percent, P = 0.00085) groups; however, the difference between the increase in the intervention (37.3 percent) and control (33.6 percent) groups at 6 months was insignificant (P = 0.641). The most common reasons for not using seat belts were forgetfulness (40.3 percent), fear of being trapped (26.7 percent), and lack of comfort (21.8 percent).

Conclusions: Seat belt use increased in this study, although the intervention videotape was no better than the control videotape at increasing restraint use. This increase in use supports office-based intervention to improve seat belt use, but further research is needed to clarify the mechanism and extent of change possible.