Knowledge and practices regarding prevention of road traffic accidents among adolescents

Road traffic accidents are one of the main causes of death and injury to adolescents. The total number of deaths every year due to road accidents has now pass the 1, 35, 000 mark, according to latest report of National Crime Bureau Study reveal that 32.4% of fatalities on road in India in age group of 15 to 24.

The Aim of the study is to assess knowledge and practices regarding prevention of road traffic accidents among adolescents and to find out correlation between knowledge and practice of adolescent regarding prevention of road traffic accidents.

A descriptive study was conducted on 300 adolescents (150 each from government and private school) in District Ferozepur, Punjab. Adolescents from 7^th standard to 10^th standard were included using purposive sampling. Structured questionnaire to assess knowledge and self reported checklist to assess the practices of adolescents regarding prevention of road traffic accidents were used.

55.7% adolescent had average knowledge whereas 37% had good knowledge, and 7.3% had poor knowledge regarding prevention of road traffic accident. The mean score was found to be 21.99. 40.6% adolescents of Private school and 33% of Government School had good knowledge. The private school adolescents had more knowledge than Govt. school adolescents. Out of 300 adolescents, majority of adolescents i.e. 59% had poor practice whereas 41% adolescents had good practices regarding prevention of road traffic accidents. There was weak positive correlation between knowledge and practices. Only age of adolescents had association with knowledge and rest of the demographical variable had no association with knowledge.

There is need to generate awareness among adolescents regarding prevention of road traffic accidents through IEC activities to curb the epidemic of Road Traffic Accidents.