CE: Trauma-Informed Care in Nursing Practice

Over the past 30 years, researchers have found that childhood trauma and its subsequent stress have a strong and cumulative effect on health in adulthood. Trauma in childhood often leads to mental health problems, skeletal fractures, and early death from conditions such as heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and liver disease. Compounding the effects of traumatic stress, health care systems often create a population of "never-served" persons who avoid health care settings because they've been subject to judgment and marginalization. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a skill underutilized by health care providers and organizations, yet nurse ethics and respect for human rights require us to care for all patients equally without judgment, including those living with the stress of complex trauma. The TIC approach respects human rights and supports nursing ethics, promoting a welcoming, inclusive environment in health care systems and patient-provider relationships that eschews implicit and explicit bias toward patients, regardless of presentation or personal circumstances. TIC foundational principles guide the application of the nursing process using patient-centered care to create safety, the first principle in TIC. Here, the authors discuss the application of these core principles in nursing through a deidentified case study.