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FiGHTS: a preliminary screening tool for adolescent firearms-carrying
1Division of Clinical Care Research, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA. nhayes@tuft-nemc.org
Annals of Emergency Medicine
|November 25, 2003
Summary
Researchers developed the brief and extended FiGHTS scores to identify adolescents who carry firearms. These screening tools show high accuracy in predicting firearm carrying among high school students.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Adolescent Health
- Injury Prevention
Background:
- Adolescent firearms-carrying is a significant risk factor for severe injury and mortality.
- Currently, no validated clinical screening tools exist to identify adolescents at risk of carrying firearms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate preliminary screening tools for adolescent firearms-carrying.
- To identify key risk factors associated with adolescent firearm possession.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 15,000 high school students in the 1999 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey for model development.
- Developed a "brief FiGHTS score" and an "extended FiGHTS score" (13 items) to predict recent firearms-carrying.
- Validated both models on a separate dataset of 55,000 students.
Main Results:
- The brief FiGHTS score demonstrated 82% sensitivity and 71% specificity (ROC AUC 0.84).
- The extended FiGHTS score achieved an ROC AUC of 0.90.
- Both screening tools performed effectively in the validation dataset.
Conclusions:
- The brief and extended FiGHTS scores exhibit high sensitivity and specificity.
- These validated screening tools may be suitable for clinical application in identifying adolescents who carry firearms.