Professional Quality of Life among Emergency Department Clinicians and Impact of Trauma Informed Care Training: A Before-and-After Cohort Study

Objectives Trauma exposures and high rates of burnout are widespread among emergency department (ED) clinicians and patients. Trauma-informed care (TIC) education promotes resilience for patients and clinicians. However, there remains a scarcity of data on the impact of TIC on ED clinician outcomes. The objectives of this study were to evaluate post-COVID-19 pandemic professional quality of life among ED clinicians and to test if participation in a TIC education initiative among ED clinicians (1) improves professional quality of life and (2) decreases bias toward patients who misuse opioids. Methods This was a single center, prospective, parallel before-and-after pilot study conducted at a single academic medical center ED. All ED clinicians at our institution participated in a TIC education series and were given the option to participate in the education series in April-May 2023 or be waitlisted to participate in June-July 2023. The validated Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) scale – V was used to assess compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress at baseline (March 2023) and again after the intervention group completed the TIC education (June 2023). The three-month change in the ProQOL subscale scores were compared between the two groups using repeated measures mixed-effects linear regression models. Results Of the 67 included clinicians, 56 selected to receive the TIC education early and 11 subjects selected to be waitlisted. Overall, no clinicians reported a high degree of burnout, secondary traumatic stress, or lack of compassion satisfaction. We did not find a statistically significant difference in the change in scores between the two groups. Conclusions We did not find the TIC education impacted ProQOL scores. This may be due to the low degree of burnout and secondary stress in our cohort.