Trauma-informed Care in Nursing Practice

Trauma is an “emotional response or experience that overwhelms an individual’s capacity to cope”
(TIP Guide, 2013, p. 5)

What is Trauma-Informed Care?

• Includes a basic understanding of how trauma impacts individuals seeking care
• Being aware and recognizing that patients may have experienced some form of trauma throughout their lives
• Changing our approach to care to avoid triggers
• Approach vs. specific skills/techniques

Principles and Practices of Trauma-Informed Practice

1. Trauma Awareness
2. Emphasis on safety and trustworthiness
3. Creating an opportunity for choice, collaboration, and connection
4. Strengths-based and skill building

Why is Trauma-Informed Care/Practice Important?

• Providing an open environment enables survivors to feel safe
• Feeling safe and supported will impact patients’ willingness to discuss their personal history of trauma
• Feeling threatened or unsafe impacts patients’ willingness to seek help and comply with interventions, leading to poor outcomes

* Disclosure of trauma is not necessary to be trauma-informed

Ways to Engage in Trauma-Informed Care

• Open and honest communication to reduce stigma
• Acknowledge personal bias and triggers to reduce burnout and trauma exposure response
• Adequate assessment (assess all domains of health), and identify when trauma may be an unacknowledged factor
• Understand that trauma survivors’ mechanisms of coping have been altered; demonstrate empathy
• Awareness of the language used to describe the people served
• Be compassionate and strength-focused in interactions
• Work together to identify how TIC can be enacted in healthcare

Trauma Informed Care Vs. Trauma Specific

Trauma-informed

• Taking into account the possibility of trauma when providing care
• Can use this approach without knowing the history of a patient
• Helps to establish rapport and trust
• Specific communication and behavior techniques to help reduce anxiety

Trauma-Specific

• Health care provider knows the patient has a history of trauma
• Understand the effects of Trauma
• Inter-professional collaboration
• Understanding personal history and reactions
• Specific interventions

Click here to download the full slideshow: “Trauma Informed Care and Nursing Practice”

Presenter:
Tess Kroeker, ADPN, BHS(PN), MBA, RPN Vice-President, ARPNBC
October 26th, 2017

In collaboration with the Association of Registered Nurses of British Columbia.