The Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale for Children; A Prospective Multi-Center Evaluation.

The Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale for Children; A Prospective Multi-Center Evaluation.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the validity and the reproducibility of the canadian triage and acuity scale when applied by regular nurses for the triage of children in the Emergency Department.

The role of triage in the Emergency Department (ED) is to assign high priority to patients who need urgent care while identifying patients that may be able to wait safely. The Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) is a triage tool constructed from a consensus of experts that is universally used in Canada. Until now, there has been no evaluation of the validity of the tool for children in a clinical context. Also, its inter-rater reproducibility has not been evaluated. The expected implementation of a revised version of the Canadian triage tool in 2008 would be an ideal moment to evaluate its validity and reproducibility. Specific objective: 1. To evaluate the validity of the CTAS for children visiting a pediatric ED and 2. To measure the inter-rater agreement for nurses using the CTAS in these settings.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Every patient younger than 18 years old that presents to the ED will be eligible except for those that need to go directly to the resuscitation room (triage level 1)

Exclusion Criteria:

• For ethical reasons, patients that need an immediate treatment will not be recruited in the study.
• Patients for whom an informed consent could not be obtained (example: insurmountable language barriers) will not be included.