The effect of sensation seeking on road traffic injury in children: The mediating role of traffic safety awareness

To investigate the characteristics of children' sensation seeking, and explore the influence on the road traffic injuries in children, as well as the mediating effect of traffic safety awareness, sensation seeking Scale and the traffic safety awareness questionnaire (CTSAQ) were completed by 873 primary and middle school students. By analyzing the data with SPSS16.0, LISERAL 8.8 and Amos 7.0, the results showed that gender and grade influence the sensation seeking significantly. Boys had higher sensation seeking tendencies than girls, and students in the forth grade of primary school were reported to have the highest sensation seeking level among the six grades. Strong correlations could be found among children' road traffic injury, sensation seeking and their traffic safety awareness. Further analysis by SEM indicated that traffic safety awareness of children mediated the relationship between sensation seeking and children' road traffic injury, and had a negative effect on them. Results were discussed to improve the road safety education for children.