Remotely Located Technician Noninferior for Car Seat Installation

FRIDAY, Oct. 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The accuracy of child car seat installation and restraint usage following education with a remotely located technician is noninferior to that with an on-site technician, according to a study published online Oct. 13 in Pediatrics.

David C. Schwebel, Ph.D., from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues conducted a noninferiority clinical trial from 2020 to 2023 at seven U.S. locations with 1,509 individuals who regularly drove vehicles with child restraints installed. Participants were randomly assigned to install a child restraint with assistance from a certified technician either live and on-site or remotely via interactive virtual presence.

The researchers found that the on-site group and remote group had unadjusted means of 97.7 and 95.6 percent, respectively, of installation/usage facets correct following the intervention. The adjusted difference was within the a priori noninferiority margin of 2.5 percent. Comparable findings were seen in sensitivity analyses controlling for demographics, how the restraint was previously installed, and installation type.

“Our results suggest that interactive virtual presence is a viable and effective alternative to live provision of professional technician assistance for child restraint installation,” the authors write. “Implications are significant, as they offer data to support widespread dissemination of the strategy by industry, nonprofit, hospital/clinic, and/or government agencies.”

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