Use of child restraint systems in the Gulf region: a systematic review.

Abstract

Background: The United Nations General Assembly has a target to half the number of worldwide deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030. Globally, road traffic injuries and deaths are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years (WHO, 2022). Child Restraint Systems (CRS) have been identified as a preventive measure. Objective: The Objective of this systematic review is to review the evidence about the use of CRS in the Gulf region. Methods: PRISMA guidelines were used to conduct a review of the evidence-based literature about the use of CRS in the Gulf region. The search for literature was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, Public Health ProQuest, and Cochrane. The date range was 1 January 2019 to 31 August 2022. MeSH terms were used to narrow initial search terms. Retrievals were stored in Endnote. Before manual screening, 31 duplicates were eliminated using the Al-Rayyan web tool. Three reviewers manually screened the remaining 188 studies; 12 studies were excluded. Next, 176 studies were sought for retrieval; 12 studies were not retrieved. Then, 164 studies were assessed for eligibility; 159 studies were excluded because they were nor relevant, conducted in the Gulf region, older than 2019 or the population was not relevant. Results: Five studies will be included in the final review. All studies are crosssectional. Two studies were conducted in Qatar, two studies were conducted in Saudi Arabia and one study was conducted in the United Arab of Emirates. Preliminary Findings suggest the use of CRS in the Gulf region is influenced by a suite of different factors including lack of knowledge about risks and proper usage and the influence of local culture and attitudes. Conclusions: The authors will complete the final analysis and draw conclusions in time for the conference in May 2023.