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Injuries and deaths from firearms among young people are a great public health concern. While safe storage is a proven security measure, less than 30% of houses with children Report store blocked and downloaded firearms . In a new study financed by the National Institute of Mental Health, the researchers intended to address this gap by testing the effectiveness of two scalable approaches to promote safe firearms storage when used during well routine visits.
What is the safe program storage program?
Multiple medical associations and United States General Surgeon Office Doctors enter as a critical source of security guide related to firearms. Pediatric doctors are trusted messengers who regularly discuss security issues with parents and other tutors, and Both parents and doctors feel that it is appropriate Include storage of firearms together with other safety discussions. Teaching parents how to store firearms safely can help save lives, with studies that show that doctors who talk to parents about firearms safety improves home storage practices.
With this in mind, a team of researchers and doctors (in association with health leaders, experts in firearms and caregivers) developed a safe program storage of firearms called Safe firearm (suicide and accidents through family education) .
Pediatric doctors deliver the program during visits to the child. It consists of having a brief conversation with parents about the importance of safe firearms storage and offering them a free cable block. The program is easy to implement and occupies less than a minute during well visits. In Previous clinical trial Parents who received the original safe firearms program were twice as probabilities to store firearms safely at home. However, the program has not been implemented widely, and this study sought to be easier.
What did the researchers do in the study?
The research team, led by Rinad Beidas, Ph.D. In the Faculty of Medicine of the Northwestern University, he tested two approaches to implement the SAFEAR GROWM program in Pediatric Primary Care.
The doctors saw more than 47,300 children aged 5 to 17 for well visits for children during the study. Visits took place in 30 pediatric clinics in two large and diverse medical care systems in Michigan and Colorado. The participating clinics were part of the Mental Health Research Network A consortium of research centers located in medical care systems and dedicated to improving patient’s mental health.
The researchers randomly assigned clinics to use one of the two simple support strategies and compared the effectiveness of strategies to promote the delivery of the firearms program:
- Push: Doctors were remembered to deliver the program through an automatic reminder in patient electronic health records.
- Push+: Doctors received the reminder plus 1 year of facilitation to implement the program (the facilitation examples included guidance on how to talk to parents, help it with implementation obstacles and comments on the performance of the clinic).
What did the study find?
Before the study, approximately 2% of pediatric doctors reported that they offered safe storage advice and cable locks during well visits. After the use of thrust or push+, the number of doctors participating in these behaviors increased significantly.
Although both strategies led to an increase in the delivery of the two components of the safe storage of firearms, the strategy of push+ (reminder and facilitation) proved to be much more shocking. Significantly more doctors who received push+ delivered the intervention (49%) compared to those who received only the thrust reminder (22%).
Additional support not only increased the delivery of the program, but did not require many additional resources or efforts. The Nudge+ clinics received only 8.7 hours of additional support per clinic every year, which come mainly from the email or chat.
What do the results mean?
This is one of the first and greatest studies in the United States focused on implementing universal storage of safe firearms as a part of routine and regular of well visits. The findings demonstrate the great positive impact of the use of low -cost and relatively economic support strategies to offer a safe program storage program during pediatric primary care. Combined with the results of a Studio funded by NIMH Previous Demonstrating high support among doctors to participate with parents on the safety of firearms storage, a convincing image arises about the best way to support doctors and clinics in collaboration with parents around this issue that saves lives.
The study had many strengths, including various participants, a randomized study design and an evidence -informed approach. However, it also had some limitations. For example, there was no control group that gave attention as usual. There are also limitations of electronic health records: the data does not indicate how much time and to what degree doctors discussed the storage of firearms with parents, nor is it guaranteed that doctors always documented those conversations. In addition, the study focused only on cable locks, and there may be other methods to ensure firearms that are more effective or more acceptable to parents.
The next steps for researchers include survey data analysis with parents throughout the study to determine whether to receive the Safe Firearms Storage Program improved real security practices at home. Researchers also plan to test these strategies to deliver the program in other environments that serve young people, such as community centers, programs after school and faith -based organizations.
Reference
Beidas, RS, Linn, KA, Boggs, JM, Marcus, Sc, Hoskins, K., Jager-Hyman, S., Johnson, C., Maye, M., Quintana, L., Wolk, Cb, Wright, L ., Papas, C., Beck, A., Bedjeti, K., Buttenheim, AM, Daley, MF, Elias, M., Lyons, J., Martin, ML, … Ahmedani, BK (2024). Implementation of a safe program of firearms storage in pediatric primary care: a random cluster trial. Jama Pediatrics, 178(11), 1104–1113. https://www.doi.org/10.1001/jamapediats.2024.3274
