A multicenter study on reliability and validity of a new triage system: the Triage Emergency Method version 2


Submitted: 27 June 2013
Accepted: 26 August 2013
Published: 24 October 2013
Abstract Views: 1314
PDF: 1355
Table: 0
Figure 1: 0
Figure 2: 0
Title page: 0
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

In Italy there are many triage guidelines and methods based on consensus. But, to our knowledge, there are few data on the reliability and predictive validity of triage systems adopted by Italian emergency departments. The Triage Emergency Method version 2 (TEM v2) is a new four-level in-hospital triage system. This paper presentes a before-and-after observational study performed using triage scenarios from June 2008 to September 2009 in 6 Italian emergency departments. Twelve nurses who received a 5-h training on TEM and a panel of experts on TEM assigned priority code to 66 scenarios. To test the inter-rater reliability among participants and the panel of experts (before and after the course), we used the weighted K statistic. We assessed the validity of TEM by calculating sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for predicting the reference standard’s triage score. The TEM v2 showed good and very-good agreement among all 6 groups of nurses with a K range=0.61-1. Also, sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of nurses’ triage rating for predicting the reference standard’s triage code was good (accuracy range=78-90%). In this multicenter study, TEM v2 has a good inter-rater reliability for rating triage acuity among all groups of participating nurses, with a K value similar to the reference standard reliability (K=0.75). Thus, the Triage Emergency Method version 2 seems to be valid and accurate in predicting a reference standard rating.

Supporting Agencies

none

Parenti, N., Sangiorgi, D., Cervellin, G., Petrino, R., Rastelli, G., Ghetti, G., & Cavazza, M. (2013). A multicenter study on reliability and validity of a new triage system: the Triage Emergency Method version 2. Emergency Care Journal, 9(2), e20. https://doi.org/10.4081/ecj.2013.e20

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations


Similar Articles

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.