THE USE OF EARLY WARNING SCORING SYSTEMS IN SURGERY PATIENTS BY EMERGENCY SERVICE NURSE: A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Abstract

Objective: Emergency services are units where unexpected health problems such as sudden illness, accident, and injury are dealt with. “Early warning scoring systems” are used to predict severity, mortality, and morbidity in patients admitted to the emergency department. This study was designed to evaluate the use of scoring systems by nurses in emergency surgery patients. Methods: This research was designed as a qualitative study and was carried out in Aydın city center between 30 December 2021 and 06 January 2022. The sample consisted of 14 nurses working in the emergency department and having at least 1 year of experience in emergency surgery/trauma patient care. The data were collected with a personal information form and a semi-structured interview form and analyzed by the content analysis method. Results: In this study, a total of four main themes and fifteen sub-themes were obtained, including priority in the evaluation of vital signs, opinions on duty and authority, observing the benefit of the patient, and professional competence. It was found that emergency room nurses only used the Glasgow Coma Scale, and some nurses did not realize that this assessment was used as a scoring method. Conclusion: It is seen that emergency nurses give priority to the evaluation of vital signs while evaluating patients, but they do not sufficiently benefit from early warning scoring systems in the evaluations. It is recommended that in-service training programs be regularly repeated, critical patient care should be taught practically in realistic environments during undergraduate education, and policies should be developed for experienced nurses to mentor nurses new to the emergency department.