Implementing the NCTSN Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment (TIOA) for Improving Trauma-Informed Care in Inpatient Child Psychiatry.

Abstract

Children and adolescents receiving inpatient psychiatric services have disproportionately high levels of exposure to trauma and adversity. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment (TIOA) is a comprehensive tool intended to guide implementation of trauma-informed care, but it has not yet been applied in inpatient settings. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to describe trauma-informed care in inpatient child/adolescent psychiatry with the TIOA, examine relatedness among trauma-informed care domains, and explore barriers or facilitators to applying trauma-informed care. This quality improvement project used mixed methods. We conducted a web-based survey in Summer 2022 with staff members (clinical and administrative) at two inpatient child/adolescent psychiatric units in California to assess trauma-informed care practices with the TIOA (87 items). Qualitative follow-up interviews were offered to interested participants. A correlation matrix and cluster analyses were used to examine relationships among TIOA domains; qualitative data were analyzed thematically. There were 69 survey respondents and seven qualitative interviews. TIOA domain scores ranged from a low of 2.3 to a high of 3.2, indicating that practices were occurring only "rarely" to "sometimes." There were two major themes identified from qualitive interviews: (a) barriers to trauma-informed care in an inpatient context that can be resource-constrained or coercive; and (b) discovering strategies to provide trauma-informed care despite structural barriers. Organizational interventions targeting any domains of trauma-informed care are needed in inpatient settings given limited uptake of trauma-informed care.