Assessment of increased knowledge about traffic accidents prevention, one month after a presentation included in the program “it can happen to you” of AESLEME

ABSTRACT: Road traffic accidents are a real pandemic and incur expenses amounting to 1–2% of every country’s GDP. AESLEME (Association for the Study of Spinal Cord Injuries) has celebrated its 30th anniversary here in Spain. AESLEME’s instructors are health workers and people with spinal cord injuries caused by road accidents: their presentations—teaching road safety and sharing information on irreversible injuries—are enhanced by personal stories that help schoolchildren to acquire knowledge on this matter. STUDY DESIGN: Pre and post-quasi-experimental study. OBJECTIVE: To assess the increase in knowledge about road safety following a school-based road safety campaign. METHODS: Two multiple-choice tests were given to each of the 8106 students taking part, who were 12–14 years old. Of the four possible answers, only one of them was correct. The first multiple-choice test was taken before the presentation and the second was taken one month later. RESULTS: After assessing the answers, there was a change in the tendency of the number of correct before/after answers for the multiple-choice test, and the number of correct ones rose one month after the presentation. This increase is statistically significant (p < 0.01) and represents a national increase of 61% in the probability of correct answers, although this varies from 8% to 278% depending on the region. CONCLUSIONS: The assessment, involving over 8000 people, showed that there has been an improvement in road safety knowledge thanks to education provided by AESLEME’s instructors, and a statistically significant increase was obtained throughout Spain and different regions.