Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a crucial approach in healthcare that trains professionals to recognize and respond to trauma, especially those in healthcare, education, and disaster response. TIC uses an evidence-based framework to improve patient care and outcomes through targeted education and training.
Standardized patients enhance this training by providing realistic, hands-on experiences in a controlled environment, helping medical learners effectively manage trauma-related situations.
What is Trauma-Informed Care?
Trauma-informed care (TIC) emphasizes the effects of impactful events that cause trauma in individuals. Understanding the TIC framework provides a foundation applicable across various healthcare professions. Rather than serving as an intervention or treatment, TIC acknowledges and addresses the influence of trauma on a patient’s environment. Introducing this innovative approach to learners ensures that the care delivered does not inadvertently hinder a patient’s recovery or healing process.
The TIC approach integrates self-awareness of racial, historical, and systemic traumas, supporting full recovery and healing. It demonstrates a commitment to understanding, gaining insight, and developing strategies contributing to a significant paradigm shift.
Trauma-informed care (TIC) encompasses essential principles that healthcare providers can use to create patient-centered care and promote communication within a supportive environment. The core principles of TIC safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, peer support, cultural competence, and empowerment are designed to help patients feel comfortable and secure, particularly those with past traumatic experiences. By adopting TIC, healthcare providers can enhance their professionalism and elevate the overall quality of care.
Training in Trauma-Informed Care
High-quality CME formatted instructions allow healthcare professionals to apply effective core TIC principles in their private practice. Being able to recognize the signs of mental health conditions and past trauma can give medical professionals a chance to use skills that suit the needs of patients. TIC training emphasizes personalized care that can create a supportive environment and allows the provider a guided approach to the specific needs of patients.
Triggers, avoiding past trauma, and language that promotes trust and open communication between the patient require continuous education and skills. When healthcare providers are trained in TIC, the impact of re-traumatization becomes significantly lower, ultimately leading to better patient satisfaction.
Why Trauma-Informed Care Matters
According to findings from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), nearly 51% of women and 61% of men report experiencing at least one traumatic event in their lives. Traumatic experiences, such as violence, natural disasters, and various forms of abuse—whether mental, emotional, physical, or substance-related—differ across personal life experiences. These events often lead to chronic conditions, cognitive disorders, or alcohol and drug abuse.
TIC helps reduce the number of traumatic events a patient can experience in the future and can improve a patient’s mental and physical well-being. Healthcare providers trained to handle unique traumatic events can make sound decisions for patients, promoting high-quality patient care and supporting their needs, particularly those who are trauma survivors.
How Standardized Patients Enhance Trauma-Informed Care Training
As highly trained individuals who can portray patients in a clinical setting, Standardized Patients (SPs) allow learners to experience and practice their clinical and communication skills in a safe, controlled environment.
In a scenario focused on trauma-informed care, SPs play a vital role in helping learners understand the value of trauma-specific events, the sensitive nature of a patient’s trauma event, and the need to be trauma-informed to identify and address these situations.
A Realistic (TIC) Scenario
A realistic scenario in which SPs can support learners is the ability to mimic a real-life human-to-human interaction. SPs can portray patients with various histories of trauma that allow both parties to role-play and apply history questions, provide background information, dialogue, and verbal feedback, and engage in face-to-face encounters. This direct encounter allows an engaging interpersonal communication experience of self-reflection.
Additionally, SPs offer a genuine human interaction instead of an avatar, transforming what could be a rigid learning process into a more engaging and dynamic experience.
Developing Communication Skills
Communication skills in trauma-informed care are critical for learners to master. SPs provide them with enhancing and mastering skills in active listening, compassion, sensitivity, empathy, rapport, and reading body language. These vital skills are essential in building trust and a safe environment for patients to open up and communicate effectively.
SPs allow learners to hone and refine skills that may otherwise make competing with peers, avatars, or other AI-based platforms difficult. Positive or negative feedback while interacting with SPs allows learners to identify weaknesses and improve their competency skills and confidence.
Cultural Competence
Trauma can affect someone of a different racial and cultural background differently. SPs of lived experience can authentically represent these diverse backgrounds to create an experience where learners can explore and understand unique circumstances that may affect individuals in specific ways. These scenarios enhance patient interaction, allowing learners to hone their cultural competencies and grow a deeper understanding of compassion, sensitivity, and respect for diversity and inclusion within a population.
Moreover, SPs, primarily when they identify as being part of a specific marginalized population, can implement strategies for patient safety by protecting patients from psychological harm and trauma. Learners can better understand diverse populations by applying TIC principles to improve communication and regard for their patients.
Feedback
One powerful way to make an impact when working with SPs is the direct, one-on-one feedback they provide learners. Once the scenario is complete, SPs give learners personalized feedback that can improve their understanding of applying TIC principles. SPs allow learners to identify potential harms, reinforce existing biases or stereotypes, and implement strategies for patient safety. By bringing awareness to the TIC principles, learners can understand the training’s aim of protecting a patient’s psychological well-being.
Trauma-informed care is a practical approach that allows healthcare providers to recognize and address patients who have survived a traumatic event. Being efficient in cultural competencies ensures that learners give patients the specific needs to treat trauma situations effectively. TIC training can provide patients with a way to heal and recover without being re-traumatized within the program.
Standardized patients trained in (TIC) offer a realistic scenario, develop communication skills, and provide meaningful feedback to ensure learners gain a meaningful experience. Utilizing TIC in medical organizations is a valuable asset that leads to positive patient outcomes and compassionate care.
Curious to learn how SPs from Simclusive can enhance your training program? Reach out today to learn how our flexible, diverse library of scenarios with SPs of lived experience can enhance your clinical and cultural competency training.
