Cultivating a Trauma-Informed Culture: A Trauma-Informed Care Education Program

Abstract

Background: Trauma is pervasive throughout the human experience. As a whole, trauma andmental health concerns often overlap within an individual to varying degrees. The social acceptance and understanding of trauma have continued to grow over the last several decades, thus increasing the utilization of psychiatric services and education for these individuals. Trauma-informed care principles and practices offer a framework for healthcare providers to shift their perspective when interacting and caring for all individuals, regardless of trauma history. The use of a trauma-informed care framework offers the opportunity for healthcare providers and organizations to resist re-traumatization when caring for patients. Purpose: This quality improvement project aimed to increase trauma-informed care knowledge, attitudes related to trauma-informed care, and intention to use trauma-informed care for direct care staff members at a local hybrid inpatient and outpatient electro-convulsive therapy treatment center. Methods: Participants were nurses or behavioral health technicians who worked at the electro- convulsive therapy treatment center. Participants were recruited through an emailed letter to participate in a one-time, synchronous, in-person PowerPoint presentation created by the primary investigator. The primary investigator created pretest and posttest knowledge assessments, attitudes related to trauma-informed care, and intention to use trauma-informed care principles and distributed them to participants who participated voluntarily. The responses were then tabulated and analyzed for changes and statistical significance. Results: Recruitment yielded eight total participants. Five participants showed improvement in knowledge. All eight participants' attitudes related to trauma-informed care increased from pre- to posttesting. Intention to use trauma-informed care increased from pre- to post-assessment for all participants. Participants highlighted the in-person, synchronous nature of the intervention as beneficial to their positive change in assessment areas. Conclusions: The use of trauma-informed care education was well accepted by voluntary participants and offers the potential for ongoing use and implementation of a critical framework for the healthcare system. Ongoing quality improvement involving trauma-informed care can positively impact the healthcare practice of individuals and may positively impact the practice culture of healthcare organizations.