Date of Award
2013
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Nursing
Abstract
In 2010, there were 134 deaths attributed to unintentional firearm injuries of children under 19 year and 3,019 nonfatal injuries (CDC, 2011). Nurses are expected to identify potential dangers in the community and protect those at risk. It was found that there is limited research on the effectiveness of current firearm injury prevention practices of nurses. The study was designed to examine the knowledge, attitudes and practice characteristics of Emergency Nurses toward firearm prevention practices. A convenience sample of 189 emergency nurses completed a voluntary, anonymous survey on practices regarding childhood gun safety. Seventy-one percent of respondents agreed that firearm violence is a problem in the community where they practice and almost half (47.7%) of the nurses believed that firearm injury prevention guidance would help reduce the risk of firearm injury or death to children and adolescents. However, when asked who usually discusses firearm safety with patients or families in their emergency departments most of the respondents (86.6%) indicated "no one." Factors of Gun ownership, growing up with firearms and state of practice were found to be the strongest predictive factors in stepwise regression. In addition the study found that most educated nurse would be the ones to institute change in their organization. The study helps to identify characteristics in the emergency nurse that would be willing to support firearm injury prevention education in the emergency department.
Recommended Citation
Gomez, Dorothy Ann, "Emergency Nurses' Knowledge, Attitudes and Preventive Practices Regarding Firearms and Firearm Injury Prevention for Children" (2013). Dissertations. 895.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/895
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2013 Dorothy Ann Gomez
