Abstract

Healthcare leaders face numerous challenges in today’s complex healthcare environment. The most pressing issues are staffing shortages and burnout among healthcare workers. By 2025, the U.S. healthcare system could experience a shortfall of up to 450,000 nurses, or 20% fewer nurses than needed to provide adequate patient care. High job dissatisfaction and burnout levels are significant factors driving many nurses away from the profession. This three-paper dissertation portfolio addressed how trauma-informed approaches and practices can enhance the work environment by establishing trauma-informed organizational climates to mitigate burnout. Understanding the impact of trauma-informed practices within healthcare systems supports the nursing workforce. This dissertation is composed of five chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of the dissertation research and explains the importance of a trauma-informed organizational climate for healthcare systems. The second chapter presents a concept analysis of trauma-informed professional development, which involves integrating trauma-informed practices into healthcare education. The third chapter consists of a scoping review of the impact of trauma-informed approaches on the healthcare workforce. The fourth chapter contains a report of original research that addressed emergency nurses’ perceptions of a trauma-informed organizational climate and the relationship of nurses’ perceptions of a trauma-informed organizational climate with role stress and burnout. The fifth and final chapter provides an overview and synthesis of the portfolio which concludes with suggestions for employing trauma informed principles to positively influence the future of nursing.

Date of publication

Summer 7-22-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4870

Committee members

Dr. Angela Preston; Dr. Barbara McAlister; Dr. Heidi Gilroy

Degree

PhD Nursing

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Nursing Commons

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