Effects of an education program for safety in sport in secondary school students

The purpose of the study is to analyze the effects of the implementation of an Education Program for Safety in physical and sport activities on psychological and personality factors related to accidents as a result of sport of Secondary Education students. Participants in this study were Secondary School students, students who were in 1st and 3rd year from a Secondary School in the province of Jaen. The total number of participants were 149 students (age= 13.62 years, SD = 1.22). By means of a controlled trial they were divided into a control group (73 participants, age = 13.60 years, SD = 1.22) and into an intervention group (76 participants, age = 13.64 years, SD = 1.24). The variables analyzed were sensation seeking, risk perception, propensity of accident and the number of injuries and accidents. Results show that after the intervention of the ESAFE program, pretest-posttest differences are significantly higher (p<0.001) in the two scales of safety and in the full scale of the intervention group. The ESAFE program has been able to reduce significantly (p<0.05) sensation seeking in sport. In conclusion, the ESAFE program can be used as an educational resource in raising awareness of the risks involved in physical and sports activities in school and, therefore, in safety education. So it would be interesting to incorporate it into the practice of PE teachers both in the initial evaluation and during the whole process of teaching and learning.