The Triage into Disaster Medicine: Analysis of a Practical Exercice

Abstract

Background: The triage is a procedure for casualties classification using some criteria (severity, survival. therapeutical delay, etc.) which is basic for the preparedness of health personnel in event of disaster. Even being a basic procedure, its teaching and training is not enough extended among health personnel. The goal of this study was assess the efícacy of teaching triaje procedures in terms of its capability to carry out the examination and classifícation of massive casualties under diferent conditions of ambiental dificulties. Methods: 25 couples of health professtonals (doctor and nurse) were trained during 90 minutes on triage procedures and them aleatory located at 3 groups with 12 simulated casualties at each group corresponding to 3 diferent levels of ambiental dificulties. They were asked to perform the triage and complete the information contained at the triage card. This information was analized in order to see and compare the results of each group. Results: All the health professionals showed high correlations between observed and expected responses for the evacuation priority variable. However, only the group of less ambiental dlficulty showed a signifícative statistical correlation (p = 0.03). No significative statistical dlferencies were found on the diagnostic clasification but the adjust level was poor for the high ambiental dificulties group Conclusions: Acceptable levels of efficacy on triage procedures can be obtained using a single teaching session of theoretical contents plus a practical exercice, specially for the casualties priorization. On the other hand, ambiental conditions looks as a variable influencing the efficacy of other acceptable results expected on this kind of technic perhaps requering further training.