Acceptability and feasibility of video-based firearm safety education in a Colorado emergency department for caregivers of adolescents in firearm-owning households.

Background: Easy firearm access increases injury risk among adolescents. We evaluated the acceptability and feasibility of improving knowledge of a 3 min safe firearm storage education video in the paediatric emergency department.

Methods: We conducted a single-centre block trial in a large paediatric emergency department (August 2020-2022). Participants were caregivers of adolescents (10-17 years) in firearm-owning households. First block participants (control) completed a baseline survey about child safety behaviours (including firearms). Second block participants (intervention) completed a baseline survey, watched the safe firearm storage video and evaluated acceptability. Participants completed a 3-month follow-up survey about firearm safety behaviours and knowledge recall. Demographic and clinical variables were compared between the intervention and control groups using Fisher's exact and χ² tests. McNemar's test was used to compare firearm storage behaviours at the initial and 3-month visit within each group.

Results: Research staff approached 1264 caregivers; 371 consented to participate (29.4%) and 144 (38.8%) endorsed firearm ownership. There were 95 participants in the control group and 62 in the intervention group. Follow-up was lower in the intervention group (53.7% vs 37.1%, p=0.04). Among participants viewing the video, 80.3% liked the video and 50.0% felt they learnt something new from the video.

Conclusions: Video-based firearm education in a paediatric emergency department is acceptable among a population of caregivers of adolescents with household firearms. This is a higher-risk group that may uniquely benefit from consistent education in the paediatric emergency department. Further study with larger populations is needed to evaluate intervention effectiveness.

Trial registration: The study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05168878).