Tong Guangyu, Sivaraman Josie Caves, Easter Michele M, Duke Naomi N, Ranney Megan L, Swanson Jeffrey W, Copeland William E
Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
RTI International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; Duke University School of Medicine, Duke University, North Carolina.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2025 Apr 23. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2025.04.011.
To test whether changes in children's and adolescents' mental health symptoms predict changes in their access to unlocked guns at home.
This study used data from a longitudinal cohort study of 1,420 youth and their parents in the southeastern United States. Parents were assessed annually up to 8 times about their child's mental health (ie, conduct, oppositional defiant, depression, and anxiety symptoms) between ages 9 and 16 years (6,674 observations total). Parents were also asked whether there were guns in their home and whether they were locked. Generalized linear mixed-effect models were used to test associations between changes in symptoms and in-home gun access adjusted for sociodemographic variables. Children with or without access to unlocked guns at baseline were differentiated in analyses.
In all, 66% of parents reported that their child had access to an unlocked gun at some point between the ages of 9 and 16 years. In homes in which children did not have gun access at baseline, changes in youth mental health symptoms did not increase or decrease the likelihood of the child having access to unlocked guns subsequently. In homes in which children did have guns access at baseline, however, increases in some mental health symptoms (either oppositional defiant (odds ratio = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.35-0.53, p < .001) or depression (OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.59-0.92, p < .008)) symptoms were associated with reduced gun access at the next timepoint. These associations were strongest for adolescents.
In an area where gun culture is strong, parents reported making safety-conscious adjustments to their children's gun access when their children displayed emotional or behavioral symptoms.
检验儿童和青少年心理健康症状的变化是否能预测他们在家中接触未上锁枪支情况的变化。
本研究使用了来自美国东南部1420名青少年及其父母的纵向队列研究数据。在孩子9至16岁期间（共6674次观察），每年对父母进行多达8次关于孩子心理健康（即品行、对立违抗、抑郁和焦虑症状）的评估。还询问父母家中是否有枪以及是否上锁。使用广义线性混合效应模型来检验症状变化与经社会人口统计学变量调整后的家中枪支接触情况之间的关联。分析中区分了基线时接触或未接触未上锁枪支的儿童。
总体而言，66%的父母报告称他们的孩子在9至16岁之间的某个时候能够接触到未上锁的枪支。在基线时孩子无法接触枪支的家庭中，青少年心理健康症状的变化并未增加或降低孩子随后接触未上锁枪支的可能性。然而，在基线时孩子能够接触枪支的家庭中，某些心理健康症状（对立违抗症状（比值比 = 0.43，95%置信区间 = 0.35 - 0.53，p <.001）或抑郁症状（比值比 = 0.74，95%置信区间 = 0.59 - 0.92，p <.008））的增加与下一个时间点枪支接触减少有关。这些关联在青少年中最为明显。
在一个枪支文化浓厚的地区，父母报告称，当孩子出现情绪或行为症状时，他们会对孩子接触枪支的情况做出注重安全的调整。
