Military Personnel With Suicidal Ideation Less Likely to Store Firearms Safely at Home

Military personnel who have firearms at home and a history of thoughts of death or self-harm are less likely to store their firearms in a safe manner than those with no such history, astudy inJAMA Network Open has found.Craig J. Bryan, Psy.D., of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah and colleagues examined the firearm storage practices of 1,652 active-duty military personnel who were seen in military primary care clinics between July 2015 and August 2018. They used the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to ask participants about firearm ownership and defined safe storage as keeping firearms locked up and unloaded. They used the Self-injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview to assess participants ’ lifetime history of suicidal ideation and attempts and item 9 of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 to assess whether the participants had thoughts of death or self-harm in the preceding two weeks. Of 1,652 study participants, 590 (36%) reported a firearm in or around their home. The researchers found that participants who had recent thoughts of death or self-harm were 39% less likely to have a firearm in the home than participants who did not have such thoughts. However, among all participants who reported keeping firearms in the home, those with a lifetime history of suicidal ideation were 53% less likely to store their firearms safely than those with no such history, and those with recent thoughts of death or self-harm were 74% less ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Craig J. Bryan firearms JAMA Network Open military Patient Health Questionnaire-9 self-harm storage suicidal ideation suicide Source Type: research