In 2018, 1729 children under 18 years of age died as a result of firearm injuries. Of those children, 41% died as a result of firearm suicide or an unintentional firearm injury. When a child attempts suicide or unintentionally injures himself/herself with a firearm, that firearm usually originated from the child’s home or that of a friend or relative (~75% of cases). Considering that 34% of households with children under age 18 contain at least 1 firearm and 71% of gun owners do not store all of their guns unloaded and locked, children are at substantial risk from unsafely stored firearms.

Safe storage practices are effective in reducing firearm injuries, especially among children. A nationally representative study of gun owners found that fewer than 20% rated physicians as good messengers around safe storage; however, physicians can be effective at motivating gun owners to adopt safe storage practices. Therefore, physicians are advised by medical associations including the American Academy of Pediatrics to counsel patients and families on the dangers posed by unsafely stored firearms in the home and safe storage practices. However, physicians are unlikely to provide this counseling, even though they feel they have a “responsibility to counsel families about firearms.” Only about 20% of pediatricians report asking more than 5% of their patients about gun ownership, and among pediatric residents the results are similar with 63% never providing firearm-related counseling or doing so in only 1% to 5% of well-child visits. In the same survey of pediatric trainees, which included those at our institution, commonly cited barriers to the provision of firearm safety counseling included lack of sufficient time to provide counseling and lack of familiarity with safe storage devices.

To assist with the barrier of insufficient time to provide counseling, we created and distributed a trifold pamphlet to patients and families to educate them on firearm injury risks and firearm storage to encourage the adoption of safe firearm storage practices in the home. This study presents the results of the evaluation of the pamphlet as an educational tool in a busy clinic setting.