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Citation
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Kuhls DA, Campbell BT, Burke PA, Allee L, Hink A, Letton RW, Masiakos PT, Coburn M, Alvi M, Lerer TJ, Gaines BA, Nance ML, Schuerer DJ, Palmieri TL, Davis JW, Geehan DM, Elsey JK, Sutton BH, McAndrew MP, Gross RI, Reed DN, Van Boerum DH, Esposito TJ, Albrecht RM, Sarani B, Shapiro DS, Wiggins-Dohlvik K, Stewart RM. J. Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2017; 82(5): 877-886. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: In the U.S. there is a perceived divide regarding the benefits and risks of firearm ownership. The American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Injury Prevention and Control Committee designed a survey to evaluate Committee on Trauma (COT) member attitudes about firearm ownership, freedom, responsibility, physician-patient freedom and policy, with the objective of using survey results to inform firearm injury prevention policy development.
METHODS: A 32 question survey was sent to 254 current U.S. COT members by email using Qualtrics. SPSS was used for χ exact tests and nonparametric tests, with statistical significance being <0.05.
RESULTS: Our response rate was 93%; 43% of COT members have firearm(s) in their home; 88% believe that the ACS should give the highest or a high priority to reducing firearm-related injuries; 86% believe healthcare professionals should be allowed to counsel patients on firearms safety; 94% support federal funding for firearms injury prevention research. COT participants were asked to provide their opinion on the American College of Surgeons initiating advocacy efforts and there was 90% and greater agreement on 7 of 15 and 80% or greater on 10 of 15 initiatives.
CONCLUSIONS: COT surgeons agree on: 1) the importance of formally addressing firearm injury prevention, 2) allowing federal funds to support research on firearms injury prevention, 3) retaining the ability of healthcare professionals to counsel patients on firearms-related injury prevention, and 4) the majority of policy initiatives targeted to reduce interpersonal violence and firearm injury. It is incumbent upon trauma and injury prevention organizations to leverage these consensus-based results to initiate prevention, advocacy and other efforts to decrease firearms injury and death. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic/epidemiologic study, level I.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal.
Language: en |