Pocus Triage in Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department With Abdominal Pain

Comparison of the Effectiveness of Focused Point-of-Care Ultrasonography Triage and Classical Triage in Patients Applying to The Emergency Department With Abdominal Pain

Introduction and Objective: This study aimed to reveal the effect of classical triage and Bedside Focused Ultrasonography (POCUS) in addition to classical triage on diagnosis, treatment, emergency department follow-up and its relationship with triage models in patients presenting to the emergency department with abdominal pain complaints.

METHOD: This randomized, controlled, prospective study was conducted with a total of 262 volunteer participants who were divided into two groups as 127 classical triage and 135 POCUS in addition to classical triage with non-traumatic abdominal pain. The decision of which participant would be included in which group was made at a 1:1 ratio using a computer-aided randomization table. The researcher did not intervene in the clinical processes in any way. In this study, the effect of POCUS application performed in addition to classical triage on clinical processes (imaging request, initial analgesia administration time, consultation request, emergency department stay and outcome) in the primary outcome and on triage systems in the secondary outcome were evaluated. IBM SPSS 21.0 software was used for statistical analysis of the data.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Present to the emergency room with abdominal pain
• No history of trauma in the last 48 hours
• Stable hemodynamics

Exclusion Criteria:

• According to the 3-way triage, the color code is red
• Being under the age of 18
• Being pregnant
• Having a history of trauma within the last 48 hours
• Being morbidly obese
• Having mental retardation
• Having repeated emergency room visits
• Being referred from the polyclinic to the emergency room with a diagnosis
• Filling the study form incompletely