Performance Characteristics of Five Triage Tools for Major Incidents Involving Traumatic Injuries to Children

The authors conducted a retrospective observational cohort study using data from 31,292 patients in the UK Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN) database aged less than 16 years who sustained a traumatic injury. They assessed sensitivity, specificity and level of agreement between five triage tools (JumpSTART, START, CareFlight, Paediatric Triage Tape/Sieve and Triage Sort) to identify patients at high risk of death or severe injury. They concluded that “no single tool performed consistently well across all evaluated scenarios.”