Measuring Mental Health Professionals' Trauma Care Competencies: Psychometric Properties of the Novel Readiness to Work With Trauma-Exposed Patients Scale

Objective: A lack of training in PTSD assessment and treatment can cause nonrecognition, misdiagnosis, or mistreatment of trauma-exposed patients in clinical practice. To fill the gap of the measures of trauma care-related competencies, the current study aimed to test psychometric properties of the novel Readiness to Work with Trauma-Exposed Patients Scale (RTEPS) in a sample of clinicians. Method: The study sample comprised 279 Lithuanian mental health professionals (91% psychologists and 9% psychiatrists). The mean age of study participants was 41.09 (SD = 10.68), 93.9% were female. Almost half of the participants (49.1%) had more than 10 years of work experience in the field of mental health, and 61.3% of clinicians reported routinely seeing trauma-exposed patients in their clinical practice. Results: Exploratory structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a three-factor, first-order model of the 10-item self-report RTEPS comprising competencies of assessment, treatment, and affect tolerance showed the best fit for the data. Additionally, previous trauma-focused training experience but not work experience was significantly associated with perceived readiness to work with trauma-exposed patients while controlling for the rates of depression and anxiety of mental health professionals. Conclusions: The findings of the study provide evidence of the RTEPS validity based on test content, internal structure, relations to other variables as well as internal consistency. The RTEPS scale is a brief and easily administered instrument that could be used in the context of training or clinical setting to evaluate the trauma care competencies among professionals. Clinical Impact Statement The current study explored properties of a novel measure of mental health professional competencies in trauma care measure-the Readiness to Work with Trauma-Exposed Patients (RTEPS). The RTEPS is intended to measure core trauma care competencies: tolerance of emotionally charged trauma-related content, competencies in PTSD assessment, and treatment. We found that previous PTSD training experience, but not professional experience, was significantly associated with higher perceived readiness to work with trauma-exposed patients. The study informs of the importance of specialized training in PTSD assessment and treatment among mental health professionals to provide the best care for trauma survivors.