Extreme Risk Protection Orders in Washington State: Understanding the Role of Health Professionals.

Abstract

Objective: Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) allow a petitioner to file a civil order to temporarily restrict access to firearms among individuals ("respondents") deemed to be at extreme risk of harming themselves, others, or both. Although unable to file ERPOs for their clients in most states, health professionals may play a pivotal role in the ERPO process by recommending an eligible petitioner initiate the process. We describe the process of filing an ERPO when a healthcare, mental health, or social service professional contacted an ERPO petitioner.

Method: Court documents of ERPOs involving health professionals in Washington State between December 8^th, 2016 and May 10^th, 2019 were qualitatively analyzed (n=24). We constructed pen portraits from the documents and analyzed them using an inductive qualitative thematic approach.

Results: Themes included factors influencing the process by which each professional evaluated respondent behaviors, factors considered during assessment, factors influencing interpretation of respondent behaviors and subsequent provider response during a crisis. These influenced the outcome of the crisis event that led to ERPO filing.

Conclusions: Each professional group differed in their approach to risk assessment of respondent behaviors. Strategies to better coordinate and align approaches may improve the ERPO process.