Trauma-Informed Care for Inpatient Palliative Care Social Work: Applying Existing Models at the Bedside

Coexisting serious illness and posttraumatic stress place hospitalized individuals at risk for complex pain, anxiety, and retraumatization. Hospital palliative care social workers increasingly recognize the value of trauma-informed care (TIC) for reducing harm in the inpatient setting. Despite this recognition, there is limited operationalization of TIC principles for inpatient interventions. This paper integrates each TIC principle with inpatient psychosocial interventions to advance trauma-informed competencies among inpatient palliative care social workers and to provide a foundation for future TIC implementation research.