Brief Trauma-Informed Care Training to Enhance Health Care Providers' Knowledge, Comfort, and Implementation of Trauma-Informed Care in Primary Care Clinics: A Pilot Effectiveness Study

Trauma-informed care (TIC) training may be valuable for patient-facing health care providers within primary care in urban health care settings serving patients with high levels of trauma exposure. This study tested the pilot effectiveness of a clinic-wide TIC initiative to enhance providers' knowledge, comfort in caring for trauma-exposed patients, and implementation of TIC within a primary care clinic of an urban safety net hospital using a single-arm longitudinal within-subjects design. Measures were obtained at baseline (T1), posttraining (T2), 1-month (T3), and 6-months (T4). Twenty-nine providers who completed TIC training were included in study analyses. Twenty-one completed T2 and 14 completed T3 and T4. Knowledge was measured with the Providers' Knowledge Regarding Injury-Related Posttraumatic Stress, comfort with a researcher-generated two-item measure, and TIC implementation with an eight-item binary scale from the Trauma Provider Survey. Repeated-measures general linear model examining within-subjects change over time in knowledge was significant (n = 8; F-3 = 4.74, p = .01, eta(p)(2) = .40); the model measuring change in comfort was not significant but trending (n = 9; F-3 = 4.56, p = .06). The model examining change in TIC implementation from T1 to T4 was not significant (n = 14; F-3 = 4.32, p = .21). This pilot study demonstrated the preliminary effectiveness of a brief TIC training on improving health care provider knowledge and comfort working with trauma-exposed patients that sustained through 6-months posttraining. The findings indicate that additional support is needed to change behaviors in provider implementation of TIC in primary care clinic settings. Impact Statement Brief trauma-informed care (TIC) training was helpful in increasing health care provider knowledge of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder and effects were sustained through 6-months posttraining, highlighting the value of incorporating universal TIC training in medical settings serving patients with high rates of trauma exposure.