Abstract:
Road traffic accident is considered as one of the common public health problems around
the world and it leads to fatal or non-fatal injuries. Especially younger generation gets
affected to a greater extent due to the inadequate knowledge regarding road traffic
regulation. This study aimed to assess the knowledge on road traffic regulations and the
influence of selected socio-demographic and personal factors on the knowledge among
the A/L students in Jaffna educational division. A descriptive, cross-sectional school based study was conducted among 612 A/L students in the Jaffna education Division.
Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Review Committee, Faculty of Medicine,
University of Jaffna. A pre-tested questionnaire in google form was used to collect data
from the sample of 766 students and cluster sampling was used. Data were analysed
by using SPSS version 25 and chi-squared test was used to describe the findings. The
response rate was 79.89 %. Mean age of the study participants was 17.89 (±0.567). The
majority of them were male (57.4 %) and studying in grade 13 (66.3 %). Nearly half
(50.5 %) of the participants were attending school by bicycle. Around 70 % of students
were known about correct side for overtaking. Most of the students were able to identify
the road signs correctly. Among them 48.5% had good knowledge, 38.9 % had moderate
knowledge and 12.6 % had poor knowledge on road traffic regulations. Knowledge had
statistical significance with age (p < 0.001), grade (p < 0.001), able to ride (p < 0.001),
having an own vehicle (p < 0.001) and having driving license (p < 0.001). The majority of
the participants had good knowledge on road traffic regulations. However some students
are unaware of road traffic rules and regulations and they require an educational program
to improve the knowledge to reduce the chance of road traffic accident.
