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Poster #57 - Talking with teens about traffic safety: A pilot study of a clinic-based intervention

Thu, April 12, 1:15 to 2:15pm, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Marquette Ballroom

Abstract/Description

Background: Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for adolescents (WISQARS, 2013). Research suggests that parents want information on teen driving from their adolescent’s primary care provider (PCP; Ford et al., 2016) and that most PCPs provide this information (Weiss et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2012), however conversations focus on seatbelts and alcohol and not on other important topics like graduated driver licensing (GDL) provisions. Additionally, parents believe that PCPs can sensitize them to their adolescents’ vulnerability to specific health threats and provide resources to address those threats proactively (Ford et al., 2009). Adolescents and parents perceive that the best way for providers to do this is through face-to-face discussions in clinic settings; and all three of these stakeholders perceive that interventions are needed and should be designed to support specific adolescent health outcomes (Ford et al., 2010).
The aims of the current study were to evaluate the Talking with Teens about Traffic Safety Program. The program is based on the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1974) and consists of a clinic-based health coaching session with parents of adolescents prior to their annual well child visit to promote parent-teen communication about teen driver safety, a Parent Handbook that is designed to serve as a primer on teen driver safety and facilitate parent-teen communication on a variety of teen driver topics, an interactive practice driving toolset, and a verbal and written endorsement of the materials by the teens’ PCP. Sessions end with a concrete cue to action to talk with teens about teen driver safety within 2 weeks. The primary outcome measure was parents’ self-reported frequency of parent-adolescent communication on teen driver safety topics assessed 6 months after the intervention.

Methods: Fifty-four parent and teen (16-17 years old) dyads were recruited from a primary care practice using directed mailings. Dyads were randomized (1:1) into a treatment group or a usual care group. Measures. Implementation fidelity was assessed using checklists completed by health coaches and parent interviews 2 weeks after the study visit. After 6 months, parents reported how often they talked with their teen about 12 safe driving topics (e.g., Why their teen wants to drive, state GDL laws) using the following scale: Never talked about (0); talked about once or twice (1); talked about three or four times (2); talked about a lot, about 5 times or more (3).

Results: Participants were primarily Black/African American teens (72%) with a median (IQR) age of 16.4 (0.6) years (50% female). Most (95%) of parents were mothers. Parents in the treatment group reported more frequent discussions on 7 out of 12 teen driver safety topics than control parents (Table 1), including GDL provisions. Fidelity data indicate that 100% of sessions were implemented as designed.

Discussion: Results showed that the program was feasible to administer and had strong evidence for preliminary efficacy. Generally, effects were larger for more infrequently discussed topics, which is to be expected due to the potential for ceiling effects on more commonly discussed topics (e.g., distracted driving).

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