Teaching Injury Prevention

In the past few years, physicians have been proposing that an emergency department visit may act as a "teachable moment" and emergency medicine physicians should educate families about injury prevention. With an epidemic number of injuries occurring, every health care provider should play some role in combating the problem. However, emergency departments can be busy and overcrowded, making it difficult for staff, in a cost efficient manner, to be able to provide families with the appropriate injury prevention information. Kiosks have been shown to be effective in a pediatric emergency department setting to determine the needs of families and to educate them about safety practices. Thus, computerized kiosks may offer a more cost effective alternative to educating families, compared to a staff member, about injury prevention in the emergency medicine setting and they would have the ability to reach more individuals during the non-high peak emergency department hours which are difficult to staff. Also, a computerized kiosk may be more effective in eliciting a behavior change than a staff person as families may be inclined to answer more freely when asked questions anonymously, allowing them to receive more detailed safety information. In addition, the kiosk provides direct recommendations about behavior changes based on parental responses in a very short time period. Typically, families only hear about a few behavior change recommendations when discussing with an injury prevention staff person in an emergency department setting due to time constraints and family interest. With more directed injury prevention information and detailed recommendations on behavior changes in a cost efficient manner, kiosks may prove to be more effective in having families practice safer behaviors after leaving the pediatric emergency department.

This is a comparative study performed in the emergency department of a level 1 pediatric trauma center during the normal business hours of the Safety Resource Center. Families entering the pediatric emergency department for care will be randomized on specific days of the week to receive IP information from an IP specialist or from a computerized kiosk in the waiting room. A twenty day block random numbers table will be used to determine which days families entering the ED will utilize the computerized kiosk and which days they will be screened by clinical research assistants (CRCs) and provided with safety instructions by an IP specialist.