Effect of JumpSTART training on immediate and short-term pediatric triage performance.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of JumpSTART training in changing prehospital care personnel and/or school nursing personnel performance in triaging pediatric patients involved in a multiple casualty incident immediately posttraining and at a 3- to 4-month follow-up interval.


METHODS
This research involved a traditional pretest, training, posttest, and follow-up test format. However, since the variable of interest was performance rather than cognition, the measures were the individual student's ability to triage 10 children with simulated injuries into 1 of 4 possible categories within a 5-minute time window. A convenience sample of participants was selected from 3 divergent geographic locations. Standardized training and performance evaluation measures were employed.


RESULTS
Significant performance improvements in pediatric triage were noted immediately following a 1-hour lecture, discussion, and case review. Changes in performance were maintained over a 3-month posttraining period. Prehospital personnel and school nurses benefited equally from pediatric triage training.


CONCLUSIONS
Structured training results in triage performance improvement among prehospital and nursing personnel. This improvement is maintained for a period of at least 3 months. Additional research pertaining to the length of time between necessary retraining and/or refresher is warranted. Additionally, the relationship between staged scenario performance and responses to actual multiple casualty incidents needs to be established.
Sanddal
Teri L
TL
Critical Illness and Trauma Foundation, Inc, Bozeman, MT, USA. tsanddal@citmt.org
Loyacono
Tommy
T
Sanddal
Nels D
ND
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004634:Emergency Medical Technicians / Q000193:education*; D004638:Emergency Treatment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010371:Pediatric Nursing / Q000193:education*; D013997:Time Factors; D014218:Triage / Q000592:standards*