Reducing Youth Access to Firearms Through the Health Care Setting

University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Youth Access to Guns in the Home

Treatments: Behavioral: Means restriction counseling

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02136225

13-2829

2013-MU-CX-0002 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this project is to examine the implementation and effectiveness of an intervention, delivered in a health care setting, to decrease home firearm access by youth. The investigators hypothesize that:

1. parents who receive means restriction education provided by their primary care provider will be more likely to report, at the one month and one year follow-up, that they are storing their guns locked compared to parents who do not receive means restriction counseling.
2. parents who receive a free gun locking device(s) will be more likely to report, at the one month and one year follow-up, that they are storing their guns locked compared to parents who receive means restriction counseling alone;
3. parents whose adolescents are assessed at high risk for violence (> 5 on the Violence Injury Protection and Risk Screen (VIPRS)) or depression (>9 on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)) will be more likely to report storing their gun(s) locked at the one month follow-up compared to parents whose children are assessed as low risk, regardless of whether they receive the counseling alone or counseling plus free locking devices and 4) youth whose parents receive a free gun locking device(s) will be more likely to report less access to guns, at one year follow-up, compared to parents who receive means restriction counseling alone.

Enrollment: 76 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 18 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patient at the Children's Hospital Colorado in the Adolescent Medicine Clinic
• Scheduled for any type of appointment
• Reports having a gun in the home

Exclusion criteria

• Adolescent or parent speaks/reads a language other than English or Spanish
• Adolescent has cognitive disabilities
• Adolescent resides in a group home or detention center

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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76 participants in 3 patient groups

Counseling

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention: Means restriction counseling. Health care providers will counsel parents on the risks of having a gun, particularly an unlocked gun in the home where youth are present.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Means restriction counseling

Counseling and locking devices

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention: Means restriction counseling and locking devices. Health care providers will counsel parents on the risks of having a gun, particularly an unlocked gun, in the home where youth are present. Parents will also receive locking devices to store their guns securely.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Means restriction counseling

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Youth in the control group will receive usual care.