Emergency Triage and Treatment Course in primary care health centres in Guatamala

Emergency triage Assessment and treatment (ETAT) course was developed by WHO in 1999 as part of its Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses program for improving outcomes for children. It has been devised as a hospital based system for health services of limited resource settings.

This study took ETAT and introduced into the primary care setting, making it a self-sustaining locally led course in a district within Guatamala. The course comprised 5 modules that cover Triage, Airway/breathing, Circulation, Coma/convulsions and Dehydration which took 16 hours in total. Two courses were delivered in October 2012, and subsequently candidates were asked to undergo a written test and a survey about their confidence prior to the course and immediately thereafter, and then again at 3 months, 6 months and 12 months after the course. They were asked to take part also in a clinical skills assessment. During this time, a quality improvement program was established to identify and remedy problems that were found to be significant for candidate performance and learning.

There was an improvement in knowledge, from the …