The Effectiveness of Pediatric Triage Training Course for Emergency Room Nurses at Siriraj Hospital

Abstract

Objective : The recognition of an acutely ill child is considered to be of vital importance in an emergency situation. Fast and timely intervention can prevent significant morbidity from occurring. The skill of assessing ill children in order to identify those that need immediate attention is often the task of experienced pediatric nurses. However, when availability of such personnel is limited, simplified triage criteria may be taught to novice nurses in order that they can quickly and efficiently identify those patients needing urgent care.
Method : We conducted a pilot triage training project with 30 volunteer, non-pediatric nurses and assessed the effectiveness of the training course through the use of a pre and post-Pediatric Triage Knowledge Test (PTKT), as well as by the accuracy of the participants' triage performance on 439 pediatric patients.
Results : The participants, on average, showed significant improvement on the Pediatric Triage Knowledge Assessment Test (p = 0.01; paired t-test), as well as being able to perform accurate triage after training on 88.3% of patients. Moreover, the existence of triage significantly reduced the waiting time of urgent patients by a total of 7 minutes (p = 0.05; t-test), while the waiting time for non-urgent patients was not affected.
Conclusion : The pilot triage training project effectively increased non-pediatric nurses' knowledge of pediatric triage and their performance of triage, and is associated with a significant reduction in the waiting time of urgent pediatric patients in the Emergency Department at Siriraj Hospital.