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Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking

OBJECTIVES: (1) To estimate the proportion of National Health Service (NHS) professionals who have come into contact with trafficked people and (2) to measure NHS professionals’ knowledge and confidence to respond to human trafficking. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Face-to-face mandator...

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Autores principales: Ross, Claire, Dimitrova, Stoyanka, Howard, Louise M, Dewey, Michael, Zimmerman, Cathy, Oram, Siân
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4550705/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26293659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008682
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author Ross, Claire
Dimitrova, Stoyanka
Howard, Louise M
Dewey, Michael
Zimmerman, Cathy
Oram, Siân
author_facet Ross, Claire
Dimitrova, Stoyanka
Howard, Louise M
Dewey, Michael
Zimmerman, Cathy
Oram, Siân
author_sort Ross, Claire
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: (1) To estimate the proportion of National Health Service (NHS) professionals who have come into contact with trafficked people and (2) to measure NHS professionals’ knowledge and confidence to respond to human trafficking. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Face-to-face mandatory child protection and/or vulnerable adults training sessions at 10 secondary healthcare provider organisations in England, and meetings of the UK College of Emergency Medicine. PARTICIPANTS: 782/892 (84.4%) NHS professionals participated, including from emergency medicine, maternity, mental health, paediatrics and other clinical disciplines. MEASURES: Self-completed questionnaire developed by an expert panel. Questionnaire asks about prior training and contact with potential victims of trafficking, perceived and actual human trafficking knowledge, confidence in responding to human trafficking, and interest in future human trafficking training. RESULTS: 13% participants reported previous contact with a patient they knew or suspected of having been trafficked; among maternity services professionals this was 20.4%. However, 86.8% (n=679) reported lacking knowledge of what questions to ask to identify potential victims and 78.3% (n=613) reported that they had insufficient training to assist trafficked people. 71% (n=556), 67.5% (n=528) and 53.4% (n=418) lacked confidence in making appropriate referrals for men, women and children, respectively, who had been trafficked. 95.3% (n=746) of respondents were unaware of the scale of human trafficking in the UK, and 76.5% (n=598) were unaware that calling the police could put patients in more danger. Psychometric analysis showed that subscales measuring perceived knowledge, actual knowledge and confidence to respond to human trafficking demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's αs 0.93, 0.63 and 0.64, respectively) and internal correlations. CONCLUSIONS: NHS professionals working in secondary care are in contact with potential victims of human trafficking, but lack knowledge and confidence in how to respond appropriately. Training is needed, particularly for maternity staff, on how to identify and respond to victims’ needs, including through making safe referrals.
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spelling pubmed-45507052015-08-31 Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking Ross, Claire Dimitrova, Stoyanka Howard, Louise M Dewey, Michael Zimmerman, Cathy Oram, Siân BMJ Open Health Services Research OBJECTIVES: (1) To estimate the proportion of National Health Service (NHS) professionals who have come into contact with trafficked people and (2) to measure NHS professionals’ knowledge and confidence to respond to human trafficking. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Face-to-face mandatory child protection and/or vulnerable adults training sessions at 10 secondary healthcare provider organisations in England, and meetings of the UK College of Emergency Medicine. PARTICIPANTS: 782/892 (84.4%) NHS professionals participated, including from emergency medicine, maternity, mental health, paediatrics and other clinical disciplines. MEASURES: Self-completed questionnaire developed by an expert panel. Questionnaire asks about prior training and contact with potential victims of trafficking, perceived and actual human trafficking knowledge, confidence in responding to human trafficking, and interest in future human trafficking training. RESULTS: 13% participants reported previous contact with a patient they knew or suspected of having been trafficked; among maternity services professionals this was 20.4%. However, 86.8% (n=679) reported lacking knowledge of what questions to ask to identify potential victims and 78.3% (n=613) reported that they had insufficient training to assist trafficked people. 71% (n=556), 67.5% (n=528) and 53.4% (n=418) lacked confidence in making appropriate referrals for men, women and children, respectively, who had been trafficked. 95.3% (n=746) of respondents were unaware of the scale of human trafficking in the UK, and 76.5% (n=598) were unaware that calling the police could put patients in more danger. Psychometric analysis showed that subscales measuring perceived knowledge, actual knowledge and confidence to respond to human trafficking demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's αs 0.93, 0.63 and 0.64, respectively) and internal correlations. CONCLUSIONS: NHS professionals working in secondary care are in contact with potential victims of human trafficking, but lack knowledge and confidence in how to respond appropriately. Training is needed, particularly for maternity staff, on how to identify and respond to victims’ needs, including through making safe referrals. BMJ Publishing Group 2015-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC4550705/ /pubmed/26293659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008682 Text en Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Health Services Research
Ross, Claire
Dimitrova, Stoyanka
Howard, Louise M
Dewey, Michael
Zimmerman, Cathy
Oram, Siân
Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
title Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
title_full Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
title_fullStr Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
title_full_unstemmed Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
title_short Human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of NHS professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
title_sort human trafficking and health: a cross-sectional survey of nhs professionals’ contact with victims of human trafficking
topic Health Services Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4550705/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26293659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008682
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