A Randomized Controlled Trial on Teaching the Safe Handling of Firearms Using a Simulation-Based Assessment.

INTRODUCTION

Emergency providers risk encountering firearms in the emergency department, but a minority report familiarity with handling firearms. It may be unsafe if unfamiliar, untrained providers attempt to remove a firearm from the clinical care space. This study assessed the efficacy of an educational intervention training resident physicians in this task.

METHODS

Five emergency medicine residency programs conducted a prospective, single-blinded randomized controlled trial assessing performance of safely removing a firearm from the clinical care space during a simulated patient encounter. The primary outcome was completion of critical actions previously assessed in a pilot study. Residents viewed a 5-minute educational video developed for this study detailing the principles of safely removing a firearm from the clinical care space. The training video was emailed to prospective participants in the intervention group ahead of the simulation session. Afterward, a debriefing session was held with all participants to review the safe handling of firearms.

RESULTS

Sixty-six of 170 prospective participants (38.8%) consented to participate. There were no significant differences in gender, clinical training level, environment of upbringing, confidence in handling firearms, firearm usage frequency, or prior firearm training. Twenty-nine participants handled the firearm during simulation. The intervention group performed significantly better than the control group, completing a median of 7 critical actions (interquartile range, 7-8) versus 6 critical actions (interquartile range, 5-7), P = 0.035. This effect held among participants who handle firearms outside of work and/or have prior firearms training.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates how a brief educational intervention was associated with improvement in participants' ability to safely remove a firearm from a simulated clinical care space. This approach can be integrated into existing curricula, and its success suggests broad applicability.