Abstract
The primary aim of this study is to review the available tools for prehospital triage in case of mass casualty incidents and secondly, to develop a tool which enables lay person first responders (LPFRs) to perform triage and start basic life support in mass casualty incidents. In July 2019, online databases were consulted. Studies addressing prehospital triage methods for lay people were analyzed. Secondly, a new prehospital triage tool for LPFRs was developed. Therefore, a search for prehospital triage models available in literature was conducted and triage actions were extracted. The search resulted in 6188 articles, and after screening, a scoping review of 4 articles was conducted. All articles stated that there is great potential to provide accurate prehospital triage by people with no healthcare experience. Based on these findings, and combined with the pre-existing prehospital triage tools, we developed a, not-yet validated, prehospital triage tool for lay people, which may improve disaster awareness and preparedness and might positively contribute to community resilience. The prehospital triage tool for lay person first responders may be useful and may help professional medical first responders to determine faster, which casualties most urgently need help in a mass casualty incident.
Highlights
In mass casualty incidents (MCI), the immediate needs of the affected community usually exceed the available resources
Based on this review we found all original articles for available prehospital triage tools, extracted them, and added extra triage tools when found unmentioned in Bazyar, et al.[39]
All conclusions and potential benefits should be drawn with caution. We share this non-validated version of the tool and look for partners to cooperate with us in the validation process. This scoping review on prehospital triage by lay people in a mass casualty incident showed that there is little research published on this subject yet
Summary
In mass casualty incidents (MCI), the immediate needs of the affected community usually exceed the available resources. The idea behind triage is to use the available resources and treatments as efficient as possible and save the highest possible number of victims. To facilitate this process, ‘triage systems’ are developed.[1,2,3,4,5,6] The first records regarding medical triage can be found from the military surgeons, DJ Larry (1766-1842) and PF Percy (1754-1825), of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. It is dangerous because it means that critical injuries might not be recognized and can affect mortality.[2,4,6] Over-triage occurs when slightly injured patients are incorrectly identified as critical ill and receive a higher level of healthcare than needed. Over-triage is dangerous too as it diverts assessment and treatment from other patients who need it more.[2,4,6] In general, a certain rate of over-triage is accepted to avoid under-triage.[2,4,6]
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