title: A review of the literature on the validity of mass casualty triage systems with a focus on chemical exposures.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mass casualty incidents (MCIs) include natural (eg, earthquake) or human (eg, terrorism or technical) events. They produce an imbalance between medical needs and resources necessitating the use of triage strategies. Triage of casualties must be performed accurately and efficiently if providers are to do the greatest good for the greatest number. There is limited research on the validation of triage system efficacy in determining the priority of care for victims of MCI, particularly those involving chemicals.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To review the literature on the validation of current triage systems to assign on-site treatment status codes to victims of mass casualties, particularly those involving chemicals, using actual patient outcomes.
  
  
  METHODS
  The focus of this article is a systematic review of the literature to describe the influences of MCIs, particularly those involving chemicals, on current triage systems related to the on-site assignment of treatment status codes to a victim and the validation of the assigned code using actual patient outcomes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There is extensive literature published on triage systems used for MCI but only four articles used actual outcome data to validate mass casualty triage outcomes including three for chemical events. Currently, the amount and type of data collected are not consistent or standardized and definitions are not universal.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Current literature does not provide needed evidence on the validity of triage systems for MCI in particular those involving chemicals. Well designed studies are needed to validate the reliability, sensitivity, and specificity of triage systems used for MCI including those involving chemicals.
authors: Assistant Professor, College of Nursing, University of South Carolina Columbia, Columbia, South Carolina.
authors: Joan M
authors: JM
authors: Culley
authors: Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana.
authors: Erik
authors: E
authors: Svendsen
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D055884:Chemical Hazard Release; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006801:Humans; D054527:Mass Casualty Incidents; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015996:Survival Rate; D014218:Triage / Q000458:organization & administration*