Registered Dietitian (RDN) Lack Knowledge and Experience Working With Human Trafficked Individuals: A Call for Interprofessional Team Education

Background

Human trafficking (HT) is the forcible recruitment and retention of individuals for forced labor, sex or other types of service. HT victims may suffer from malnutrition, dehydration, low food security, and infections, leading to poor health outcomes. HT victims are normally treated with interprofessional team care (IPT). Although RDNs are trained to deliver MNT for these conditions, they may lack knowledge, self-efficacy, and opportunities to assist HT individuals on IPT.

Objective

To explore Registered Dietitian cli(RDN) knowledge, self-efficacy, barriers and need for training to assist HT individuals.

Study Design, Settings, Participants

This cross-sectional study involved a 43-question e-mail survey completed by (n=241; response rate 25%) members of the Indiana Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (63% of responses), the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Women's Health Dietetic Practice Group (23%), and Ball State University dietetic preceptors (14%).

Measurable Outcome/Analysis

Descriptive statistics, Chi-Square analyses, and ANOVA were used to determine RDNs’ overall knowledge of, self-efficacy for, experience working with and barriers to assisting HT individuals on IPT.

Results

Participants were largely female (97%), white (97%), and had 10+ years of practice (54%). Two-thirds of participants indicated they were “not at all” confident in identifying and caring for HT individuals. RDNs between ages 30-44 and had 3-5 years of practice had the highest mean scores for HT knowledge. RDNs indicated that barriers to working with HT individuals included a lack of: education and professional development on how to serve this population; known cases in the workplace; and reliance on incomplete patient histories. RDNs indicated that they desire more education on assisting HT individuals through continuing education, preferably through webinars.

Conclusions

No studies to date have explored RDNs’ knowledge of, experience with, or educational needs for raising their ability to assist HT individuals in a variety of settings. RDNs face barriers to working on IPT serving HT individuals. Education, particularly continuing education, may help facilitate RDNs’ ability to make impactful improvements in HT individuals’ health and well-being.

Funding

None