Safety First? Parental Perceptions Regarding Protective Sports Gear for Youth Participating in Recreational and Competitive Sports

Background: Despite the wide availability of protective sports gear (PG), sports-related injuries continue to rise with over 3.5 million cases reported annually among children in the United States. These injuries may result, in part, from misconceptions among parents that PG is not necessary for chi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pediatrics (Evanston) 2019-08, Vol.144 (2_MeetingAbstract), p.189-189
Main Authors: Milanaik, Ruth, Kahan, Tamara F., Padala, Aidan, Das, Prithwijit, Sidhu, Sharnendra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Children
Children & youth
Parents & parenting
Pediatrics
Sporting goods
Sports injuries
Sports related injuries
Team sports
Trauma
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Summary:Background: Despite the wide availability of protective sports gear (PG), sports-related injuries continue to rise with over 3.5 million cases reported annually among children in the United States. These injuries may result, in part, from misconceptions among parents that PG is not necessary for children above a certain age or in certain sports supervision settings [SS; casual play (CP), official practice (OP), formal games (FG)]. The goal of this study was to determine the age, if any, at which parents of children (ages 4-18 years) would allow their child to play nine sports without PG in different SS. Methods: In an anonymous questionnaire delivered via Amazon Mechanical Turk, parents were asked at which age, if any, they would allow their child to play seven team sports (volleyball, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, football, soccer, lacrosse) and two individual sports (biking, skateboarding) without PG in three SS. A chi-square test of independence was performed to compare the percentages of parents who would allow their child to participate in these sports without PG in different SS. Results: Significant differences in parental attitudes towards PG use were noted across all sports and SS (Table 1). For every team sport, a greater percentage of parents, on average, reported allowing their child to play without PG in CP (60.4%) compared to OP (30.6%) and FG (23.7%). The average age at which parents would allow their children to play a sport without PG decreased from FG (11.2 years) to OP (10.3 years) to CP (9.2 years) for all seven team sports (Table 2). A greater percentage of parents reported allowing their child to skateboard without PG compared to biking (χ2=18.47, p
ISSN:0031-4005
1098-4275
DOI:10.1542/peds.144.2MA2.189