Clinicians across the United States may be better able to identify young adults and youth at risk of firearm violence exposure by implementing a new screening questionnaire, according to a study published by researchers at the University of Michigan.
The SaFETy score, a clinical tool developed at U-M, is the only free resource of its kind used to specifically identify firearm violence exposure among young adults and youth. It uses four items and a ten-point scale to gauge an individual’s risk:
- Fighting frequency
- Number of friends who carry weapons
- Frequency of hearing gunshots in their neighborhood
- Frequency of experiencing firearm violence threats
The findings, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, show that those who score higher on the SaFETy score scale were more likely to have experienced some form of firearm violence.
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