Owens Grace, Nguyen Anh, Hershberger Paul, Conway Katharine, Crawford Timothy
St Elizabeth Family Medicine Residency, Edgewood, KY.
Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center Internal Medicine Residency, Los Angeles, CA.
PRiMER. 2023 Jul 28;7:22. doi: 10.22454/PRiMER.2023.953811. eCollection 2023.
Safety practices such as storing a firearm locked and unloaded are widely promoted although not universally applied. Educating patients about firearm safety practices is effective in increasing safe firearms storage behaviors; however, screening for safe firearm storage in practice remains low. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether our clinic population was at risk for firearm-related injuries and whether opportunities existed to study risk-mitigation interventions in future work.
The study was conducted at a suburban, midwestern academic family medicine clinic. Patients filled out paper surveys about firearm ownership and willingness to discuss firearms safety with clinicians. Health care personnel filled out paper or electronic surveys about their comfort level in discussing firearm safety with patients. Data then were collated and analyzed.
We surveyed 160 patients (60% female, 80% White), and 40.6% of respondents reported living in a home with a firearm. Respondents who stored their firearm unsafely were more willing to discuss firearm safety than to change their storage behavior. Eighteen health care personnel responded to our health care personnel survey. Perceived barriers to asking about firearms included lack of time, knowledge, or educational materials. Having a screening policy was selected as the best opportunity for improvement.
Firearm owners appear willing to discuss firearm safety with their clinician, potentially representing an opportunity to promote risk-reduction through approaches such as motivational interviewing. In a busy outpatient setting, automating the firearm screening process could lessen the burden on clinicians.
诸如将枪支上锁并保持未装填状态等安全措施虽被广泛推广，但并未得到普遍实施。对患者进行枪支安全措施教育可有效增加安全的枪支存放行为；然而，在实际操作中对安全枪支存放情况进行筛查的比例仍然很低。本研究的目的是评估我们诊所的患者是否存在枪支相关伤害的风险，以及在未来工作中是否有机会研究降低风险的干预措施。
该研究在中西部郊区的一家学术性家庭医学诊所进行。患者填写关于枪支拥有情况以及与临床医生讨论枪支安全意愿的纸质调查问卷。医护人员填写关于他们与患者讨论枪支安全时的舒适程度的纸质或电子调查问卷。然后对数据进行整理和分析。
我们调查了160名患者（60%为女性，80%为白人），40.6%的受访者报告家中有枪支。不安全存放枪支的受访者更愿意讨论枪支安全，而不是改变他们的存放行为。18名医护人员回复了我们的医护人员调查问卷。询问枪支相关问题的感知障碍包括缺乏时间、知识或教育材料。制定筛查政策被选为最佳改进机会。
枪支拥有者似乎愿意与他们的临床医生讨论枪支安全，这可能代表了一个通过动机性访谈等方法促进降低风险的机会。在繁忙的门诊环境中，使枪支筛查过程自动化可以减轻临床医生的负担。
