| Popis: |
Background:Triage scales are essential tools for an early and rapid assessment of patients, by classifying them according to their degree of urgency. The objective of this study was to measure the reliability and validity of a four-level severity score based scale.Methods:To evaluate reliability, 250 triage forms were triaged by 6 triage nurses twice, 15 days apart. Intra and inter-rater reproducibility were measured using a weighted Cohen’s Kappa. For the validity study, 485 charts were evaluated. The relationship between triage level and emergency department resource consumption was measured using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Prediction of severity was measured by the correlation between triage level and hospitalization in any ward, and between triage level and death in the emergency department or hospitalization in an intensive care or high dependency unit. Areas under the ROC curves were measured for these results.Results:For inter-rater reproducibility, the weighted Kappa was measured at 0.51 (95% CI 0.30 – 0.70), and 0.67 (95% CI 0.42 – 0.91) for intra-rater reproducibility. 474 patients were recruited in the validity study, respectively 26 (5%), 50 (11%), 384 (81%) and 14 (3%) for triage levels 1 through 4. Spearman’s correlation coefficient between triage level and emergency department resource consumption was calculated at R = -0.41 (p |
