Identifying Human Trafficking in the Hospital via an Abuse Screening Tool.
Kali Weiss, Karisa K Harland, Shannon Findlay
PMID 39992268WHAT IT FOUND
Adding three trafficking questions to a hospital abuse screen found 25 of 303 patients who answered yes to those questions had charting concerning for trafficking. 11 concerning cases did not answer yes to them.
Nurses should not rely on the questions alone.
Key findings
01Among 303 unique patients with a positive screen on the trafficking questions, 25 screenings had documentation highly concerning for trafficking.
02Eleven screenings had documentation highly concerning for trafficking despite not screening positive on the trafficking questions.
03Twenty percent of screenings with documentation highly concerning for trafficking were positive only on the trafficking questions and negative on all other abuse questions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The trafficking questions were not validated, and no external validation was done. The review started with positive screens, so the paper does not give the denominator of all screened patients needed to estimate prevalence among all hospital patients. Identification depended on chart documentation; protected Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner notes and trauma-informed documentation may have hidden trafficking cases. Social work follow-up was missing or vague for many positive screens, so true exploitation status is unknown. The study was single-site and retrospective, and emergency department crowding and hallway care may limit generalizability.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the Abuse Risk + HT tool is validated or that it will identify all trafficked patients. The questions were not validated, and some patients with concerning documentation did not answer yes to the trafficking questions.