Assessing Emergency Department Staff Knowledge, Competency, and Implementation of Pre- and Post-Trauma-Informed Care Training

• Published in: Journal of emergency nursing 2024-10
• Main Authors: Lamberson, Miles, Collins, Samantha C., Axtmayer, Caitlin, Bisanzo, Mark, Della Grotta, Kay, Fleisher, Courtney L., Marsac, Meghan L., Mathon, Cecelia J., Pulcini, Christian D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Emergency care; Humanism; Mental health; Patient care teams; Trauma-informed care
• ISSN: 0099-1767; 1527-2966; 1527-2966
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jen.2024.09.010

Trauma-informed care has been posited as a framework for creating ideal and safe environments for patients to participate in treatment. However, there are limited studies that demonstrate the impact of a focused trauma-informed care training on ED staff. We implemented a 4-hour trauma-informed care training in a general emergency department. We aimed to measure changes in knowledge, opinions, self-rated competency, barriers, and recent practices before and after implementing trauma-informed care training. We hypothesized that the training would result in significant self-reported improvement in all domains. We performed a pre/post interventional study with the intervention being a trauma-informed care training adapted for ED clinical care staff. A validated, publicly available survey tool (Center for Pediatric Stress Trauma-Informed Care [TIC] Provider Survey) was used to assess knowledge, opinions, competency, and utilization of and perceived barriers to trauma-informed care. Pre- and post-training surveys were collected. Responses were stratified by role. Continuous variables were compared using analysis of variance; categorical variables compared using Pearson’s chi-square. Participants demonstrated a high level of perceived knowledge and opinions of trauma-informed care before and after training. We observed significant increases in self-reported competence for all ED staff, some increase in utilization of trauma-informed care in recent practice, and significant decreases in perceived barriers to providing trauma-informed care. Trauma-informed care training is an effective means to improving ED staff self-perceived competence and practice of trauma-informed care even among those with high self-perceived knowledge and opinions of trauma-informed care before the training. Future study should explore the patient-level impact of trauma-informed care training, as well as how to continue to reduce barriers to system-wide implementation of trauma-informed care practices.