Abstract:

Background: Poor helmet use has led to great head injury burden especially trauma and death after accidents. It is estimated that over million people worldwide are injured or disabled due to poor helmet use (1). In mwanza city, many commercial motorcyclists either don’t have helmets or poor use them which had resulted in injuries in case of accidents.

Objectives: The overall purpose of the study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices on helmet use among commercial motorcyclists in mwanza city.

Methodology: This was a cross-sectional where a sample size of 225 respondent who were commercial
Motorcyclists selected by simple random sampling procedure. A pretested structured questionnaire were used to gather knowledge, attitude and practices towards helmet use. The data were analyzed based on the broad and specific objectives of the study using SPSS version 20.0 computer program by double checking to ensure accurate entry of data. The results were represented using frequency tables.

Results: A total of 225 respondents were involved in this study, majority were male 98.7% and most of them 56.9% are aged 18-30 years. Majority (73.8%) had formal education which partly attributed to the fact that they had limited chances of getting other jobs and thus engage into motorcycling business as a last option following unemployment regardless of being a risky job. Majority (96%) had good knowledge about helmet use slightly low positive attitudes (88.5%) on helmet use and possession of helmet was not much good of which 184 (81.8%) had helmet. Poor helmet use contributed by lack of education on helmet use where 147 (65.3%) did not receive routine educations about helmet use (0.0000), 216 (96%) knew their uses and the best sources of helmets (P=0.003). Only 68.5% provide helmet to their passengers: the rest do not provide helmet to their passenger with a reason of possession of one helmet and negligence of the passenger with a reason of possession of one helmet and negligence of the passengers.

Conclusion: The study finding that majority of commercial motorcyclists in mwanza region are young adult with formal education, with most of them having relative high knowledge, positive attitude and slightly good practice on helmet use helmet use though low in passengers. This study recommends increased community awareness on helmet use among riders and passengers and enforcement and revival of road safety laws of passengers and motorcyclists on helmet use.