Department of Health Sciences, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, Connecticut, USA.
Injury Prevention Center, Connecticut Children's & Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
J Am Geriatr Soc. 2020 Sep;68(9):2128-2133. doi: 10.1111/jgs.16450. Epub 2020 May 1.
Using available literature, our aim was to design a firearm safety counseling protocol tool for dementia patients.
We conducted a literature review on firearm safety counseling by healthcare providers using several databases to inform the creation of our evidence-based protocol.
Roughly 5.7 million Americans currently live with some form of dementia with approximately 60% of persons with dementia (PWD) owning a firearm. The mental deterioration associated with dementia creates an opportunity for firearm abuse, misuse, and injury. Patient and family safety counseling from a healthcare provider is one potential opportunity for reducing the level of danger. This literature review identifies the available clinical guidelines for firearm safety for PWD and creates a firearm safety counseling protocol based on existing literature.
Persons with dementia and their families or care takers.
Databases were searched using variations of the terms "Firearms," "Dementia," and "Alzheimer's disease." Studies were included for review if they provided either recommendations or guidelines for healthcare provider's counseling around firearm safety for PWD or their families.
Search terms yielded 456 articles, of which 12 met inclusion criteria. Using the available literature, we developed a firearm safety counseling protocol that provides measurable means to assess risk and offer harm mitigation strategies for patients and their families. Mitigation strategies are based on Clinical Dementia Rating scale assessment at time of patient interaction and results of risk assessment.
Providing standardized and effective clinical guidelines to healthcare providers who interact with firearm-owning PWD can act as a means to reduce firearm injury and violence. The protocol proposed in this article needs further testing and validation to determine if it will help reduce firearm-related events in PWD.
利用现有文献，为痴呆患者设计一个枪支安全咨询方案工具。
我们对医疗保健提供者进行枪支安全咨询的文献进行了综述，使用了几个数据库来为我们的循证方案提供信息。
目前约有 570 万美国人患有某种形式的痴呆症，其中约 60%的痴呆症患者（PWD）拥有枪支。与痴呆症相关的精神恶化为枪支滥用、误用和伤害创造了机会。来自医疗保健提供者的患者和家庭安全咨询是减少危险程度的一个潜在机会。本文献综述确定了针对 PWD 的枪支安全现有临床指南，并根据现有文献制定了枪支安全咨询方案。
痴呆症患者及其家属或护理人员。
使用“枪支”、“痴呆”和“阿尔茨海默病”等术语的变体搜索数据库。如果研究为医疗保健提供者就 PWD 或其家属的枪支安全咨询提供建议或指南，则纳入研究进行审查。
搜索词产生了 456 篇文章，其中 12 篇符合纳入标准。利用现有文献，我们制定了一个枪支安全咨询方案，为患者及其家属提供了衡量风险和提供减轻伤害策略的可衡量手段。缓解策略基于临床痴呆症评定量表在患者就诊时的评估以及风险评估的结果。
为与拥有枪支的 PWD 互动的医疗保健提供者提供标准化和有效的临床指南，可以作为减少枪支伤害和暴力的一种手段。本文提出的方案需要进一步测试和验证，以确定其是否有助于减少 PWD 中的与枪支相关事件。
