Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Dec;8(1):80.
doi: 10.1186/s12245-015-0080-5. Epub 2015 Aug 7.

Reliability of Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) in Saudi Arabia

Mustafa Alquraini  1 , Emad Awad, Ra'ed Hijazi
Affiliations

Reliability of Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) in Saudi Arabia

Mustafa Alquraini et al. Int J Emerg Med. 2015 Dec.

Abstract

Background: The Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) is an integral part of the Canadian emergency medicine triaging system. There is growing interest and implementation of CTAS worldwide. However, little is known about its reliability outside Canada. The aim of this study was to determine the reliability agreement of CTAS in a tertiary care emergency center in Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Ten triage nurses (five senior and five junior nurses) utilized CTAS guidelines to independently assign a triage level for 160 real case-based scenarios. Quadratic weighted kappa statistics were used to measure raters' agreements.

Results: Raters provided 1600 triage category assignments to case scenarios for analysis. Intra-rater agreement was similar for both senior and junior nurses; for senior nurses (SN1) kappa 0.871 95 % CI (0.840-0.897), and for junior nurses (SN2) kappa 0.871 95 % CI (0.839-0.898). Inter-rater agreement for the SN1 versus SN2 nurses had statistically meaningful agreement across different triage levels (weighted kappa = 0.770) 95 % CI (0.742-0.797).

Conclusions: CTAS has good reliability among emergency department (ED) triage nurses in King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC), Saudi Arabia. The findings suggest that CTAS might be a reliable instrument when applied in countries outside Canada.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Iserson KV, Moskop JC. Triage in medicine, part I: concept, history, and types. Ann Emerg Med. 2007;49(3):275–81. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.05.019. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hamamoto J, Yamase H, Yamase Y. Impacts of the introduction of a triage system in Japan: a time series study. Int Emerg Nurs. 2014;22(3):153–8. doi: 10.1016/j.ienj.2013.10.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Moskop JC, Iserson KV. Triage in medicine, part II: underlying values and principles. Ann Emerg Med. 2007;49(3):282–7. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.07.012. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Christ M, Grossmann F, Winter D, Bingisser R, Platz E. Modern triage in the emergency department. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2010;107(50):892–8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rivers EP, Katranji M, Jaehne KA, Brown S, Abou Dagher G, Cannon C, Coba V. Early interventions in severe sepsis and septic shock: a review of the evidence one decade later. Minerva Anestesiol. 2012;78(6):712–24. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources