Abstract
Background: Human trafficking (HT) entails recruitment, transportation, harboring or receipt of persons by force, fraud, coercion, or other deceptive or threatening measures primarily for the purposes of forced labor, commercial sexual activity, or organ donation. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are approximately 40.3 million HT victims globally, including over 10 million children. Moreover, Florida ranks third highest of all U.S. states in reported cases of HT. Although HT awareness campaigns in Florida and the U.S. have greatly increased awareness of the issue among the public, academic, and healthcare communities, studies show that healthcare professionals (HCP) and future HCP are still unclear about actionable best practices for identifying and assisting victims of HT. As such, 88% of trafficking victims in the U.S. are not correctly identified when seeking services from HCP.
Objectives: The goal of this study was to assess whether a brief, online, synchronous HT training guided by osteopathic principles would impact HT knowledge, comfort with best clinical practices, and adherence to service delivery guidelines in HCP students.
Methods: Based in the osteopathic medicine principle of holism (i.e., a “whole-person approach”), a 90-minute online synchronous multi-media training, developed by the researchers in collaboration with local HT victim advocacy organizations, was offered to HCP students via Zoom in November 2020. Based on professional guidelines from trafficking experts, content was organized under 3 domains: 1) self-reported comfort with HT service delivery, 2) knowledge about HT best clinical practices (i.e. support through trauma-informed care, optimal service delivery, documentation, and specific action items), and 3) HT epidemiological facts. The training incorporating facts, experiences, anecdotes, videos, and real case studies to educate participants about HT, with emphasis on trafficking in the United States and Florida. Pre- and post-assessments were administered before and immediately after the live training via REDCap data management software. Using SPSS v.26, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-tests, and chi square analyses were used to explore differences between pre- and post-training assessment scores in the 3 domains. This study was approved by the Nova Southeastern University Institutional Review Board.
Results: The HT training was completed by 187 HPS from (primarily) osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and nursing programs at Nova Southeastern University. Most participants were women (N=154; 82.4%). Twenty-four participants (12.8%) reported they had a patient disclose a history of trauma/abuse. Post-test results showed that participants scored statistically significantly higher in all domains: comfort with HT service delivery (p <.01), knowledge about HT best clinical practices (p < .05), and 8 of the 10 HT fact items (p < .05).
Conclusion: Findings from this pilot study indicate that a synchronous, online training to increase knowledge of and improve comfort with HT practice guidelines for trauma-informed care may prove useful, particularly in training health professions students. Given the increasing incidence of HT, the ubiquitous nature of online education, and the promising results of this pilot, a larger efficacy and feasibility study of this HT training may be warranted.
