New research: 'Firearms, Dementia, and the Clinician'

Willimantic, CT (05/22/2020) — Not much is known on how to prevent people with mental illness from buying guns. Mitchell Doucette, an assistant professor of health sciences at Eastern Connecticut State University, says there are also few resources that physicians and other health care providers can use to guide firearm safety conversations. Along with other scholars, Doucette has recently published research on a counseling protocol that healthcare providers can use with dementia patients to enhance firearm safety.

The article, "Firearms, Dementia, and the Clinician: Development of a Safety Counseling Protocol," appeared in the May 1, 2020, issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, and was co-authored by Harrison Dayton, Garry Lapidus, Kevin Borrup, and Brendan Campbell.

"In public health, our primary goal is to prevent disease and illness," said Doucette. "Having dementia is itself a risk factor for suicide and unintentional injuries. Increasing meaningful and respectful conversations between firearm owners and their physicians around safe firearm storage can prevent a person with dementia from using their firearm against a love one or a caregiver in a confused state. It can prevent a child or teenager from using the firearm accidentally. It can also prevent the person with dementia from using it on them self."

Doucette said the research shows the importance of a doctor engaging older persons on firearm safety. "Physicians are a trusted source of both health and wellness information. We know that when a physician talks with their patients about safety issues, it can have meaningful results. We used previously published guidelines and recommendations to generate a usable tool for health care providers, which could assess a person with dementia's risk for firearm injury and provide useable safety messages based on a patient's risk profile."

Doucette said physicians will be able to increase the frequency and robustness of their firearm safety counseling for persons with dementia and their families as well. "For example, in advanced dementia stages, where the person with dementia displays episodes of agitation and combativeness, it is recommended that physicians counsel the patient's family members on ways to legally transfer a firearm to another firearm owner in the family or replace all ammunition with blanks."

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Eastern Connecticut State University is the state of Connecticut's public liberal arts university, serving 5,000 students annually at its Willimantic campus and satellite locations. In addition to attracting students from 162 of Connecticut's 169 towns, Eastern also draws students from 34 other states and 19 countries. A residential campus offering 41 majors and 65 minors, Eastern offers students a strong liberal art foundation grounded in an array of applied learning opportunities. Ranked among the top 30 public universities in the North Region by U.S. News and World Report in its 2019 Best Colleges ratings, Eastern has also been awarded 'Green Campus' status by the Princeton Review 10 years in a row. For more information, visit www.easternct.edu.