Do Children's Mental Health Symptoms Impact Their Access to Unlocked Guns at Home?

OBJECTIVE

To test whether changes in children's and adolescents' mental health symptoms predict changes in their access to unlocked guns at home.

METHOD: This study used data from a longitudinal cohort study of 1,420 youth and their parents in the southeastern United States. Parents were assessed annually up to 8 times about their child's mental health (ie, conduct, oppositional defiant, depression, and anxiety symptoms) between ages 9 and 16 years (6,674 observations total). Parents were also asked whether there were guns in their home and whether they were locked. Generalized linear mixed-effect models were used to test associations between changes in symptoms and in-home gun access adjusted for sociodemographic variables. Children with or without access to unlocked guns at baseline were differentiated in analyses.

RESULTS

In all, 66% of parents reported that their child had access to an unlocked gun at some point between the ages of 9 and 16 years. In homes in which children did not have gun access at baseline, changes in youth mental health symptoms did not increase or decrease the likelihood of the child having access to unlocked guns subsequently. In homes in which children did have guns access at baseline, however, increases in some mental health symptoms (either oppositional defiant (odds ratio = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.35-0.53, p < .001) or depression (OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.59-0.92, p < .008)) symptoms were associated with reduced gun access at the next timepoint. These associations were strongest for adolescents.

CONCLUSION

In an area where gun culture is strong, parents reported making safety-conscious adjustments to their children's gun access when their children displayed emotional or behavioral symptoms.

PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: Using data from the Great Smoky Mountain Study, this study found that 66% of parents reported that their child had access to an unlocked gun at some point between the ages of 9 and 16 years. However, parents in gun-owning households reduced firearm access when children exhibited increased symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder or depression, especially in adolescence.