Educating Emergency Department Staff on the Identification and Treatment of Human Trafficking Victims

Authors

Donahue, S., Schwien, M., LaVallee, D.

Type
Journal Article
Year published
2019
Journal
Journal of Emergency Nursing
Accession number

25831

Title

Educating Emergency Department Staff on the Identification and Treatment of Human Trafficking Victims

Volume and issue

45, 1

Abstract

This journal article discusses a project that looked at the efficacy of an online training module designed for emergency department (ED) personnel to screen for human trafficking victims. The project team developed this training module because evidence shows most trafficking victims receive medical treatment in emergency departments while in captivity; however, medical personnel are unprepared to identify and treat victims. They tested the module in two suburban hospitals with 75 ED medical personnel, where they found almost 90% of the participants had no previous training on human trafficking. Less than half of the participants stated they had a comprehensive understanding of human trafficking before the intervention, with an increase to 93% after education. The training significantly increased the confidence of the participants to both identify and treat human trafficking victims.

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