Evaluation of Covid-19 Triage Assessment Scale in Patients Attending the Emergency Department

Abstract

Objective: To predict SARS-CoV-2 PCR positivity on the basis of symptoms and contact history of individuals who attend emergency department
 Methods: The data for the study which was of a prospective-methodological type were collected from 503 patients who attended emergency department of a hospital with suspected Covid-19 between 02 January - 15 March 2021 and were given Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Covid 19 Visual Triage Scale (VTS) and questionnaire were used for collecting data. Distribution of socio-demographic data was interpreted in frequency, percentage. Independent samples t-test and chi-square test were used to compare quantitative data. Cut-off value of the scale was determined. In the study, sensitivity and specificity of the scale were tested through scoring adopted based on the real time PCR test result.
 Results: According to the PCR test, 67% of the patients were tested negative while 33% of them were positive. According to Covid-19 VTS, 55% of the patients were found to be negative while 45% were found positive. Validation of scale resulted in 0.65 AUC with a 45% sensitivity and 82% specificity using a cut-off value >4. In its comparison with PCR test, the scale was found to detect 93 real positive and 204 real negative patients. Self-reported fever, cough, sore throat, loss of taste and smell and history of contact with a confirmed Covid-19 case were found to be strong predictors for detecting Covid-19(p

Examination of the Relationship Between Thanatophobia and Resilience Levels of Nurses Working in Intensive Care and Palliative Care Units

“…The Thanatophobia Scale mean score of nurses was moderate at 31.74 ± 10.08 in this study. There have been studies in our country examining the thanatophobia levels of nurses and reported moderate to high levels [11,[20][21][22]. In a qualitative study by De Swardt and Fouche (2017), it was determined that nurses who gave post-mortem care to the deceased in the intensive care unit experienced thanatophobia by confronting the reality of their own death [23].…”

“…The scale was developed by Friborg et al and was translated into Turkish and veri ed for validity and reliability by Basim and Çetin [18,19]. It contains 33 items and 5 subdimensions, which are 'structural style' (3,9,15,21), 'perception of future' (2,8,14,20), 'family coherence' (5,11,17,23,26,32), 'perception of self' (1,7,13,19,28,31), 'social competence' (4,10,16,22,25,29) and 'social resources' (6, 12,18,24,27,30,33). If increased scores are to indicate increased resilience, the answer boxes should be rated from 1 to 5 from left to right.…”