• Pirjo Kaakinen, Helvi Kyngäs, Kaisa Tarkiainen, and Maria Kääriäinen.
• Unit of Nursing Science and Health Management, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. Electronic address: pirjo.kaakinen@oulu.fi.
• Int Emerg Nurs. 2016 May 1; 26: 26-31.

Aims And ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a nurse training intervention on the assessment of patients' care needs in telephone triage at an emergency unit. The objective of this study was to generate information about nurse training that can be utilized when developing telephone triage and health care education.BackgroundWith the growing number of patients coming into emergency departments and a lack of resources in healthcare, it would be valuable to determine an effective training intervention in telephone triage, particularly when assessing the training needs of nurses.DesignThe study was quasi-experimental, with a pre- and post-test design.MethodsThe data were collected from the nurses at the emergency department and joint emergency service of the Central Hospital in Northern Finland (baseline n = 28, post-test n = 26). The descriptive statistic, Fisher's χ(2) test and McNemar's test were used to analyse the data.ResultsThe intervention improved nurses' skills to evaluate patients' needs and health condition via the telephone triage. There was a statistically significant difference in the resources, knowledge, skills and attitudes of the nurses between the baseline and post-test measurements.ConclusionsThe nurse training intervention improved the quality of telephone triage.Relevance To Clinical PracticeNurses should receive continuous training in telephone triage in order to maintain and reinforce their professional competence. When planning the training, the age and relevant work experience of the nurses should be taken into consideration as well, since the results indicate that they lead to variation in the nurses' competence.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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