Irish Children's Triage System: Back or Neck Pain or Injury

The Irish Children's Triage System is used to triage pediatric patient coming to the Emergency Department.

Patient selection: back pain, back injury, neck pain, neck injury

Parameters:

(1) airway compromise

(2) respiratory failure or arrest

(3) signs of shock (replaces term "hypotension")

(4) abnormal age-related vital signs

(5) Glasgow coma scale

(6) pain

(7) patient on spinal precautions

(8) history or mechanism of injury

(9) back or neck pain

(10) difficult walking

(11) history of bleeding disorder

(12) duration of problem

Parameters	Findings	Category
abnormal vital signs	category 1	1
	category 2	2
	category 3	3
	none of these	5
shock	uncompensated	1
	compensated	2
	none	5
Glasgow coma scale	<= 12	1
	13 or 14	2
	15	5
pain	severe (VAS >= 7)	2
	moderate (VAS 4-6)	3
	mild (1 to 3)	4
	none	5
duration	less than 48 hours (recent) or acute symptoms	4
	> 48 hours without acute symptoms	5
history or mechanism	significant	2
	inconsistent with findings	3
	consistent	5
back or neck pain	with altered peripheral neurology	4
	without focal neurological findings or limb deficits	4

Other Parameters	Category
airway compromise	1
respiratory failure/arrest	1
spinal precautions	2
difficulty walking	3
history of bleeding disorder	3
back trauma less than 24 hours ago	3

final triage category =

= MIN(categories for all of the parameters)

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