Human trafficking is a global health issue that requires a combination of responsive intervention as well as focused identification of victims of human trafficking by social and health care professionals. Health and social welfare professionals are not equipped with competences to identify support and care for victims of human trafficking.
The goal of this study was to assess whether the level of competences of social services and nursing students would improve after a lecture on identification and care for victims of human trafficking by conducting a quasi-experimental study, while the objectives of this study is to examine the effects of training social service and nursing students on the concept of human trafficking, the warning signs of human trafficking, the effects of human trafficking and the role of the social and healthcare providers in identifying victims of human trafficking. A quasi/experimental study was conducted with participants being students of Laurea University of Applied Sciences Tikkurila campus. All the participants pursued their bachelor’s degree in English. The study was conducted in three (3) parts; pre-test questionnaire, a class lecture on human trafficking followed by a post-test questionnaire.
There were 85 participants, of which one participant’s questionnaire was not used. 75% of participants were female, while 25% were male. The majority of the participants, 54%, were pursuing their nursing degree while 46% were pursuing a degree in social services. The questionnaire items represented four (4) themes and the results were presented according to the themes. The data was entered in the SPSS software, descriptive statistics were used to find the mean score of the pre-test and post-test in their perspective themes. Pre-test and post-test results were measured against each other using paired sample T-tests.
The results showed slight improvement in the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test. On the paired sample T-test however, significant difference was not seen on all the thematic themes. The most significant difference was seen in the theme of the role of the healthcare provider in human trafficking, which was the objective of this thesis.
A developmental task is recommended to create a curriculum for nursing and social welfare studies that will focus on identification and care of victims of human trafficking.
Keywords: Human trafficking, victims of human trafficking, vulnerability, trauma-informed care, trainin
