RESEARCH ARTICLE
Are Parents Willing to Use Technology to Prevent the Tragedy of Forgetting Children Inside Cars?
Gila Albert1, *, Rivka Kerbis1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 13
First Page: 162
Last Page: 168
Publisher ID: TOTJ-13-162
DOI: 10.2174/1874447801913010162
Article History:
Received Date: 13/04/2019Revision Received Date: 17/07/2019
Acceptance Date: 14/10/2019
Electronic publication date: 15/11/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Forgetting children inside cars is a tragedy that can happen to anyone, anywhere. Especially on hot summer days, when the temperature inside the car rises quickly, it may lead to a tragic result: vehicular heatstroke. In the U.S, on average, 37 children die this way every year.
Objective:
This paper aims to provide further insights and a deeper understanding of the variables that may affect parents’ willingness to adopt a technology (various systems or smartphone apps) to remind them not to forget a child inside a vehicle.
Methods:
Ninety-two participants, all parents of children under the age of 10 and car owners, participated in an internet survey. The participants completed an internet-based questionnaire, which included socio-economic and personality questions, as well as items pertaining to perceptions, attitudes and behavioral intentions toward using this type of technology. The framework was designed based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).
Results:
The results indicate that the perceived usefulness of such technology is significantly and positively correlated with usage attitudes. Women showed a significantly more positive usage attitude and stronger behavioral intentions compared to men. It was also found that a higher level of stated anxiety implies a more positive usage attitude, and stronger behavioral intentions to use this type of technology.
Conclusion:
More effort should be made to understand how such tragedies can be avoided and what the role of technology is in this regard. The most important challenge is to encourage those parents, who are less reluctant, to try out this technology, in an attempt to prevent the tragedy of forgetting children inside cars.
