ObjectiveTo understand the safety-related riding behaviors of 0- to 6-year-old children and to analyze their parents' awareness of the safe riding thereof.

MethodsSelf-administered questionnaires were used to make investigations on the parents of the 0- to 6-year-old children described as follows. Several 0- to 3-year-old children's parents who owned private cars and sent their children to schools/back home by cars daily were randomly selected from the planned immunization/children's health clinic of 10 community health service centers in Changning District of Shanghai, the parents of these children were surveyed. Several 4- to 6-year-old children's parents who owned private cars and sent their children to schools/back home by cars daily were randomly selected from the kindergartens therein, the parents of these children were surveyed. SPSS 17.0 was used in relevant statistical analyses.

ResultsA total of 3 509 persons were investigated. The means of their riding in private cars were shown as follows, in order of proportion, from the highest to the lowest: using child restraint system(CRS) (44.1%), sitting in laps of adults(28.1%), sitting by themselves with seatbelts(18.0%)and sitting by themselves without seatbelts (9.8%); with the increase of age, the proportions of using CRS and sitting in laps of adults decreased and those of sitting by themselves increased. Almost 90% of child passengers were habitually rear-seated, but 1.8% thereof sat in the CRS seats installed in front and 7.2% thereof simply sat in co-pilot seats in front without any safety restraints. The overall awareness rate of the parents for the core knowledge of the CRS seats was 67.1%, only 23.8% of the respondents surveyed knew all the core knowledge. The rate of using CRS seats by parents was positively correlated with the relevant knowledge and attitudes of the parents for CRS seats(χ²= 357.8, P < 0.001). For the parents who believed that using CRS seats is the safest way of riding, the rate of using CRS seats by their children was also the highest. Parents with higher levels of education and higher incomes tended to have higher levels of awareness.

ConclusionCompared with foreign developed countries, the rate of using CRS seats by 0- to 6-year-old children is relatively low in Changning District. The rate of using CRS seats by parents is closely related to the relevant knowledge and attitudes of the parents for CRS seats. Parents have a low level of awareness and misunderstanding of safe riding. It is necessary to strengthen the publicity and education, especially for the awareness of children's safe riding for families with relatively low levels of education, thus urging parents to take more reliable children's safe riding measures so as to ensure the safety of children's riding.