A Community-Based Trauma-Informed Care Curriculum on Women's Health for Third-Year Medical Students

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Public Health
• Trauma Studies

Background:

• Trauma significantly impacts health, necessitating medical trainee education in trauma-informed care (TIC).
• Existing TIC curricula lack integration of community feedback in their design.
• A gap exists in experiential and community-informed TIC training for medical students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel 4-hour trauma-informed care (TIC) curriculum for medical trainees.
• To integrate community insight, clinical expertise, and practical communication training into the curriculum.
• To assess the impact of the TIC curriculum on medical students' understanding and application of TIC principles.

Main Methods:

• Community-based participatory research principles guided curriculum design with community member involvement.
• A 4-hour training included lectures, videos, role-play, and an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) with community partners as standardized patients (SPs).
• Student outcomes were assessed via pre/post surveys and OSCE performance, with SPs providing feedback.

Main Results:

• All 34 participating third-year medical students showed significant pre- to post-session increases in TIC understanding and confidence (p < .05).
• Students achieved a mean OSCE score of 82.6%, indicating strong performance in trauma-sensitive encounters.
• Standardized patient feedback confirmed students' empathetic and effective engagement.

Conclusions:

• The novel TIC curriculum for women's health is a successful and scalable model for medical education.
• Integrating community voices and experiential learning effectively addresses educational gaps in TIC.
• This approach enhances medical trainees' ability to provide trauma-informed care.