Key Points Question What are the patterns, frequency, and duration of handgun carrying among youths growing up in rural areas? Findings This cohort study of 2002 rural students found 6 distinct trajectories of handgun carrying, with many youths initiating handgun carrying at least as early as 12 years of age, and more than 20% of some groups carrying a handgun 40 or more times in the past 12 months. Meaning This study suggests that prevention programs to reduce the risk of firearm-related harm should be delivered early in the elementary school period.
IMPORTANCE Firearms are the most common method of suicide, one of the "diseases of despair" driving increased mortality in the US over the past decade. However, routine standardized questions about firearm access are uncommon, particularly among adult populations, who are more often asked at the discretion of health care clinicians. Because standard questions are rare, patterns of patient-reported access are unknown. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether and how patients self-report firearm access information on a routine mental health monitoring questionnaire and additionally to examine sociodemographic and clinical associations of reported access. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSCross-sectional study of patients receiving care for mental health and/or substance use in primary care or outpatient mental health specialty clinics of Kaiser Permanente Washington, an integrated health insurance provider and care delivery system. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESElectronic health records were used to identify patients who completed a standardized self-reported mental health monitoring questionnaire after a single question about firearm access was added from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2019. Primary analyses evaluated response (answered vs not answered) and reported access (yes vs no) among those who answered, separately for patients seen in primary care and mental health. These analyses also evaluated associations between patient characteristics and reported firearm access. Data analysis took place from February 2020 through May 2021.RESULTS Among patients (n = 128 802) who completed a mental health monitoring questionnaire during the study period, 74.4% (n = 95 875) saw a primary care clinician and 39.3% (n = 50 631) saw a mental health specialty clinician. The primary care and mental health samples were predominantly female (63.1% and 64.9%, respectively) and White (75.7% and 77.0%), with a mean age of 42.8 and 51.1 years. In primary care, 83.4% of patients answered the question about firearm access, and 20.9% of patients who responded to the firearm question reported having access. In mental health, 91.8% of patients answered the question, and 15.3% reported having access. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEIn this cross-sectional study of adult patients receiving care for mental health and substance use, most patients answered a question about firearm access on a standardized mental health questionnaire. These findings provide a critical foundation to help advance understanding of the utility of standardized firearm access assessment and to inform development of practice guidelines and recommendations. Responses to standard firearm access questions used in combination with dialogue and decision-making resources about firearm access and storage may improve suicide prevention practices and outcomes.
ImportanceThe absence of reliable hospital discharge data regarding the intent of firearm injuries (ie, whether caused by assault, accident, self-harm, legal intervention, or an act of unknown intent) has been characterized as a glaring gap in the US firearms data infrastructure.ObjectiveTo use incident-level information to assess the accuracy of intent coding in hospital data used for firearm injury surveillance.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis cross-sectional retrospective medical review study was conducted using case-level data from 3 level I US trauma centers (for 2008-2019) for patients presenting to the emergency department with an incident firearm injury of any severity.ExposuresClassification of firearm injury intent.Main Outcomes and MeasuresResearchers reviewed electronic health records for all firearm injuries and compared intent adjudicated by team members (the gold standard) with International Classification of Diseases, Ninth and Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM) codes for firearm injury intent assigned by medical records coders (in discharge data) and by trauma registrars. Accuracy was assessed using intent-specific sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV).ResultsOf the 1227 cases of firearm injury incidents seen during the ICD-10-CM study period (October 1, 2015, to December 31, 2019), the majority of patients (1090 [88.8%]) were male and 547 (44.6%) were White. The research team adjudicated 837 (68.2%) to be assaults. Of these assault incidents, 234 (28.0%) were ICD coded as unintentional injuries in hospital discharge data. These miscoded patient cases largely accounted for why discharge data had low sensitivity for assaults (66.3%) and low PPV for unintentional injuries (34.3%). Misclassification was substantial even for patient cases described explicitly as assaults in clinical notes (sensitivity of 74.3%), as well as in the ICD-9-CM study period (sensitivity of 77.0% for assaults and PPV of 38.0% for unintentional firearm injuries). By contrast, intent coded by trauma registrars differed minimally from researcher-adjudicated intent (eg, sensitivity for assault of 96.0% and PPV for unintentional firearm injury of 93.0%).Conclusions and RelevanceThe findings of this cross-sectional study underscore questions raised by prior work using aggregate count data regarding the accuracy of ICD-coded discharge data as a source of firearm injury intent. Based on our observations, researchers and policy makers should be aware that databases drawn from hospital discharge data (most notably, the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample) cannot be used to reliably count or characterize intent-specific firearm injuries.
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