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

Pediatrics Clinical Trial

— PERC CTAS  

Official title:

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

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT00807352
• Other study ID #: PERC CTAS
• Secondary ID: Grant No. XG09-0
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: December 10, 2008
• Last updated: August 4, 2011
• Start date: April 2009
• Est. completion date: March 2011

Study information

• Verified date: July 2011
• Source: St. Justine's Hospital
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Canada: Ethics Review CommitteeCanada: Health Canada
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

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.

Description:

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.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 1464
• Est. completion date: March 2011
• Est. primary completion date: March 2011
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: N/A to 18 Years

Eligibility

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.

Study Design

Observational Model: Cohort, Time Perspective: Prospective

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Pediatrics
• Triage

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Canada	Alberta Children's Hospital	Calgary	Alberta
Canada	Stollery Children's Hospital	Edmonton	Alberta
Canada	IWK Heath Centre	Halifax	Nova Scotia
Canada	Children's Hospital of Western Ontario	London	Ontario
Canada	CHU Sainte-Justine	Montreal	Quebec
Canada	Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario	Ottawa	Ontario
Canada	Centre hospitalier de l'Université Laval	Quebec
Canada	The Hospital for Sick Children	Toronto	Ontario
Canada	BC Children's and Women's Hospital	Vancouver	British Columbia

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
St. Justine's Hospital	Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), SickKids Foundation

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Canada, 

References & Publications (1)

Gravel J, Gouin S, Manzano S, Arsenault M, Amre D. Interrater agreement between nurses for the Pediatric Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale in a tertiary care center. Acad Emerg Med. 2008 Dec;15(12):1262-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1553-2712.2008.00268.x. Epub 2008 Oct 17. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	The inter-rater agreement between the two nurses measured by the weighted Kappa score		15 minutes	No
Primary	The correlation between triage level and the hospitalisation rate		1 day	No
Secondary	The correlation between triage level and admission to the intensive care unit		1 day	No
Secondary	The correlation between triage level and length of stay in the ED after being seen by a physician		1 day	No
Secondary	The correlation between triage level and resources use		1 day	No