Effect of Triage Training on the Clinical Performance of Emergency Department Nurses

Acute syndrome is among the most critical health challenges in Western and Eastern societies, including Iran. It is still the most common cause of death in the subgroup of cardiovascular diseases. This study aimed to assess the effect of triage training on the clinical performance of emergency department nurses.

This semi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test groups was conducted in Imam Khomeini Hospital of Khoy Faculty of Medical Sciences in 2019. 100 patients referred to the emergency department of the Imam Khomeini Hospital of Khoy, in which "Emergency Severity Index (ESI)" triage was actively performed, were selected by the simple random method. Data were collected by the nurses' demographic information questionnaire, patients' demographic characteristics questionnaire, and the time measurement form. The data before the training was compared with the data after the training using SPSS 20 software, and the test non-parametric Chi-square and independent T-test and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data

The analysis of the variance test showed a statistically significant difference in patients' average length of stay in the emergency department, both before and after the intervention. T-test showed that the triage time, arrival to the first clinical procedure, arrival to the first doctor's visit, and the patient's stay in the emergency department before and after the intervention had a statistically significant difference (p<0.01).

The triage training of emergency ward nurses decreases the average time of arrival until taking an ECG and the average time of arrival until receiving a thrombolytic.