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Education

Providing trauma-informed care in the acute care setting

05 September 2024
Professional
02 September 2024
Volume 33 · Issue 16

Abstract

Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have increased people's awareness of mental health issues. Psychological trauma impacts patients in the acute care setting through physical and mental health presentations. Trauma is a public health issue crossing all socioeconomic groups and is related to social determinants of health. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is an evidence-based approach to providing care. TIC is within the scope of nursing practice and improves outcomes for patients. However, there is a lack of standard terms or practices within healthcare. Additionally, there is superficial acknowledgment of the need for TIC at the local or national level regarding policy. Nurses need to adopt TIC into practice and advocate for policy change to improve the health and lives of those seeking care.

Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the Black Lives Matter protests have highlighted the need for increased awareness of mental health issues across a broad section of the population: schoolchildren, families, health professionals and other essential workers; even pregnant and birthing women (Choi et al, 2020; Choitz and Wagner, 2021). Never before has there been so much focus on trauma and its effects. The past few years have been traumatic worldwide. There has been racially motivated violence, killings captured and shared on social media, political unrest and widespread protesting (Choitz and Wagner, 2021), all of which can be directly or indirectly traumatising. In England, nearly 50% of all adults have experienced a traumatic event (Bellis et al, 2014), and the World Health Organization reported that 70% of those surveyed experienced lifetime trauma (Kessler et al, 2017). These events provide a unique opportunity to advocate and raise awareness of the need for trauma-informed care (TIC) in multiple settings, including acute care.

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Trauma
Trauma-informed care
Acute care
Social determinants of health
Policy
Nursing practice
Holistic nursing