Article
Triage in the developing world
can it be done?
M A Robertson, E M Molyneux
Department of
Paediatrics, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre, Malawi
Correspondence to: Prof. Molyneux emolyneux{at}malawi.net
Accepted 28 March 2001
AIM
To assess guidelines for the
emergency triage, assessment, and treatment (ETAT) of sick children
presenting to hospitals in the developing world. This study pretested
the guidelines in Malawi, assessing their performance when used by
nurses compared to doctors trained in advanced paediatric life support (APLS).
METHODSTriage was performed
simultaneously by a nurse and assessing doctor on 2281 children
presenting to the under 5s clinic. Each patient was allocated one of
three priorities, according to the ETAT guidelines. Any variation
between nurse and assessor was recorded on the assessment forms.
RESULTSNurses identified 92 children requiring emergency treatment and 661 with signs indicating a
need for urgent medical assessment. One hundred and forty two (6.2%)
had different priorities allocated by the APLS trained doctor, but
these children did not tend to need subsequent admission. Eighty five
per cent of admissions were prioritised to an emergency or urgent category.
CONCLUSIONAlthough there are no
gold standards for comparison the ETAT guidelines appear to reliably
select out the majority of patients requiring admission.
Keywords: triage; developing world; emergency care
© 2001 by Archives of Disease in Childhood
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Arch. Dis. Child. 2001 85: 0.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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