An Investigation On The Concept Of Triage In The Event Of Disasters And Emergences: Definition, Ethical Decision-Making

Abstract

All rescuers and health professionals, who take part in minimizing injuries and deaths depending on the status of a disaster and emergency in case of an extraordinary incident, undertake great responsibilities. Disaster triage decision is a vital practice to save as many human lives as possible by using the right methods fast and effectively, with a focus on creating optimal benefit. Ethical decision-making and ethical dilemma problems may arise during disasters. The effectiveness of disaster triage services has been established for all disaster service workers. The goal of this study is to provide suggestions to all rescuers and health professionals with regards to making ethical decisions and cope with ethical dilemmas they may face during triage. This study has been prepared by analyzing national/international reports and national documents and reviewing documents from electronic databases and printed resources by taking previously published resources as a basis. This study is a document analysis study based on investigation of reports. The amount of basic medical resources and the number of intervening healthcare professionals are limited during disasters, therefore triage applications during disasters are crucial to reducing the number of preventable mortality and morbidity. It is a fact that healthcare professionals' ethical knowledge level regarding disaster triage has an impact on their ability to make triage decisions. It is inevitable for them to fall into ethical dilemmas due to various factors during triage. In this section, examples from world literature and studies from our country will be presented. Meaningful suggestions will be made at the end of the study.