Triage is an essential function of an Emergency Department which helps in sorting and prioritizing patients according to their need of care. It considers patients’ level of acuity and potential for threat to life due to their condition, as well as patients’ anticipated resource need and is the keystone of organization of care in emergency departments. A descriptive study was conducted in the emergency departments of, Three Tertiary Care Hospitals in the Central Province Sri Lanka. The research population included all nurses working in triage units of emergency departments of mentioned three hospitals and a self- administered questionnaire was used as the tool for data collection from the voluntary participants. Out of 84 participants, 58.3% had a good knowledge on triage and 21% had excellent knowledge on triage. In the analysis of triage scenarios, five out of ten scenarios were optimally triaged by more than 60% of participants. However, three scenarios were significantly under-triaged, while two were significantly over-triaged. Similar variations in triage accuracy were observed across all the scenarios. Out of 84 participants, 52.4 % had more than 10 years of experience as a nurse. However, 79.8% of them had less than 5 years of experience as a nurse in the emergency department and 61.9% had less than 2 years of experience as a triage nurse. 63% of the participants has enrolled in training programs related to nursing care but there was poor participation in training courses related to emergency care and triage. Majority of the nursing officers had a good knowledge on triage. But despite good theoretical knowledge, applying triage in practice can be challenging. Many nurses had not participated in training courses for advanced life support, trauma, or disaster management, which could contribute to lower performance in clinical scenarios. Nurses should be encouraged to pursue training in emergency, critical care, triage and trauma nursing. Conducting further research and quality improvement through audits, evaluations, and regular assessments could enhance triage knowledge and practice..
2025-01-01.
Download PDF