INVESTIGATING THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE REGARDING TRIAGE MANAGEMENT AMONG NURSES WORKING IN PUBLIC SECTOR HOSPITAL OF PESHAWAR

Abstract

Introduction: Emergency departments worldwide handle a large number of patients, causing overcrowding and affecting the quality of care, as life-threatening conditions often go untreated due to the overwhelming workload. Triage was designed to facilitate the emergency staff as well as the patients, and with the passage of time, it became an integral part of the emergency department that prioritizes patients on the basis of their severity and attention. Nurses present in the triage are experienced and trained for this role to assess patient for their presenting complaint.

Material & Methods: The study design of the study was descriptive cross-sectional, while the study was conducted in the public sector hospitals of Peshawar Pakistan. Through convenient sampling technique data from 200 registered nurses were collected from May to July 2021. The data was collected through a questionnaire as a tool for the assessment of nurses’ knowledge regarding triage management.

Results: The findings show that the nurses were aware regarding the 4-color coding (82.5%), in case of road traffic accident (80.9%), in head injury (61.5%). The participants also had a good knowledge regarding the principles of triage and what is the precaution used in triage management. The overall knowledge of the nurses was good (45.23%), followed by average (30.65%), excellent (12.56%) and low (11.56%).

Conclusion: The result of this study showed that a major portion of the respondents have satisfactory knowledge, while a good portion of participants have deficient knowledge because the (40%) respondents had not got any formal training on triage management. Answering few basic and critical questions on triage management the respondent replies were incorrect.