Violence In Healthcare

Providing care to victims of human trafficking can be traumatic. As such, nurse leaders should educate nurses on ways of identifying victims and connect them to support systems.  According to Byrne, Parsh and Parsh (2019), human trafficking is modern-day slavery involving 12 to 30 million people. Lamb-Susca and Clements (2018) also demonstrate that 50-80% of the victims of trafficking are seen by healthcare providers while still under control of the trafficker. The visits to healthcare are triggered by a condition that prevent normal functioning, positive pregnancy tests, abortions or recurrent sexually transmitted infections.

Even though there is no specific indicator to identify victims of human trafficking, there are various signs that nurses should understand. In this respect, during healthcare visits, nurses should assess mood swings, suicidal thoughts, paranoia and posttraumatic stress disorder. Other behavioral symptoms include addiction, nightmares or sleep disturbances. Physical signs include burns, bald patches on the head or bruises. Besides, the patient story about lifestyle or how they arrived in the country can be inconsistent. Furthermore, victims of human trafficking have inadequate control over their lives, finances, cannot speak for themselves and are coached to give dishonest responses to healthcare providers’ questions.

In this case, nurses can establish trust as an effective intervention to get honest and open questions. Nonetheless, language barriers can be a hindrance (Byrne et al., 2019). This is because many victims trafficked into the US from other nations do not speak English and require an interpreter. As a result, avoiding leading questions and direct questions can help the nurse create a non-judgement and safe environment to get honest responses. The nurse can ask questions to assess patient’s working conditions, physical health, mental health, lack of control over their lives, and living conditions.

Nurses’ knowledge about community resources that serve people with risk factors for human trafficking is also a suitable intervention. Community resources such as mental health agencies, substance abuse centers and shelters can provide victims with housing, familial support and basic needs to reduce susceptibility. After victims are physically stable, they should be supported to deal with psychological effects because if they are addressed they are likely to be victimized.

References

Byrne, M., Parsh, S., & Parsh, B. (2019). Human trafficking: Impact, identification, and   intervention. Nursing Management, 50(8), 18-24.      https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000575304.15432.07

Lamb-Susca, L., & Clements, P. T. (2018). Intersection of human trafficking and the emergency  department. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 44(6), 563-569.           https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2018.06.001

By admin in Blog on November 3, 2022