|
Abstract
|
BACKGROUND: Several U.S. medical organizations urge clinicians to counsel patients about firearm risk (1). How often these conversations occur and what topics are covered are unknown.
Objective: To estimate the proportion of adults in gun-owning households who have discussed firearm safety with a clinician and to characterize these encounters.
Methods: Data were obtained from the second National Firearms Survey, conducted online 30 July 2019 to 11 August 2019 by the survey firm Ipsos. The study sample comprised adults living in homes with firearms, regardless of whether they were gun owners themselves. Participants were sampled from Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a probability-based web panel of approximately 55 000 noninstitutionalized, English-speaking adults that was designed to represent the U.S. population, excluding active military service personnel. Weighting commands in Stata, version 16.1 (StataCorp), were used to generate descriptive statistics using weights provided by Ipsos. Poststratification weights adjusted for nonresponse and under- or overcoverage from the study-specific sample design relative to expected demographic distributions from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey. These weights also adjusted for characteristics not available from national surveys, such as gun ownership, from weighted KnowledgePanel data. Harvard University's Institutional Review Board approved the study.
Respondents were asked, "Has a physician or other health care practitioner ever spoken to you about firearm safety?" Those answering affirmatively were asked where discussions occurred (outpatient medical visit, outpatient mental health visit, emergency department, or other setting); who the patient was (the respondent, another adult, or a child); and, for each patient-setting combination affirmed, what was discussed in the most recent such encounter. Participant characteristics included sociodemographics, presence of children in the home, and personal firearm ownership status.
Findings: The National Firearms Survey included 4030 adult respondents, all of whom lived in homes with firearms (completion rate, 65%); 4011 answered all firearm safety questions. Of all respondents, 7.5% (95% CI, 6.6% to 8.6%) had ever discussed firearm safety with a provider (12.0% [CI, 9.9% to 14.6%] of those living with children vs. 5.3% [CI, 4.4% to 6.3%] in homes without children) (Table 1). Most encounters involved an outpatient medical visit (not shown). Of respondents spoken to about firearms, 48.0% (CI, 41.1% to 54.9%) said that locking all firearms was discussed at their most recent visit, 31.8% (CI, 23.6% to 38.7%) that storing ammunition separately from firearms was discussed, and 15.9% (CI, 11.3% to 21.9%) that removing firearms from the home was covered (Table 2). Removing firearms was rarely discussed when the patient was a child (4.1% [CI, 1.1% to 9.4%]); when the patient was the respondent or another adult, however, conversations about removal were reported by one quarter or half of respondents, respectively...
Language: en |