Facilitators and Barriers to Integrating Trauma-Informed Care in Undergraduate Nursing Education

Effects of pervasive exposure to trauma result in a costly public health crisis. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a well-known and established health care approach for supporting individuals who experience trauma. Despite increasing recognition of its importance, TIC remains poorly integrated into nursing education, with reasons that are not yet well understood. This interpretive descriptive study explored nurse educators’ perspectives on the facilitators and barriers for embedding TIC into nursing curricula in Ontario, Canada. Twenty eight participants were purposively sampled from an online survey of 145 respondents for semistructured interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis guided the generation of key facilitators and barriers. Facilitators included: passionate educators, innovative teaching strategies, supportive leadership, and collaborative teaching models. The barriers to TIC integration in undergraduate nursing programs included: the invisibility of TIC in curricula; a lack of faculty training and confidence; overloaded, siloed program structures; challenges with authentic assessment; and inconsistent role modelling in clinical settings. Embedding TIC into undergraduate nursing education requires intentional curricular mapping, institutional support, faculty development, and alignment with clinical practice and experiential learning. Effective integration of TIC in undergraduate nursing curricula is needed to equip nurses to address the growing global burden of trauma and support a resilient nursing workforce.