ArticleBMC geriatrics2019
Age is associated with increased mortality in the RETTS-A triage scale.
Article in BMC geriatrics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- IMPACT: Integrated Model For Patient Acuity, Care, And Triage Efficiency In Emergency Department.Journal of medical systems · 2026Article
- Individual Patient Sociodemographic Characteristics Are Associated With Waiting Time to Physician Assessment in Seven Swedish Emergency Departments: An Observational 5-Year Cohort Study of Emergency Department Visits in the Stockholm Region.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2025Article
- The role of vital signs in predicting mortality risk in elderly patients visiting the emergency department.BMC emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Uncovering nonlinear patterns in time-sensitive prehospital breathing emergencies: an exploratory machine learning study.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Observational
- Age in addition to RETTS triage priority substantially improves 3-day mortality prediction in emergency department patients: a multi-center cohort study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2023Observational
- Myocardial injury defined as elevated high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T is associated with higher mortality in patients seeking care at emergency departments with acute dyspnea.BMC emergency medicine · 2023Article
- Using mobility status as a frailty indicator to improve the accuracy of a computerised five-level triage system among older patients in the emergency department.BMC emergency medicine · 2022Article
- A longitudinal, retrospective registry-based validation study of RETTS©, the Swedish adult ED context version.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2022Article
- Effect of age adjustment on two triage methods.BMC emergency medicine · 2022Article
- A registry-based observational study comparing emergency calls assessed by emergency medical dispatchers with and without support by registered nurses.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2022Observational
- Admission of patients with chest pain and/or breathlessness from the emergency department in relation to risk assessment and copeptin levels - an observational study.Upsala journal of medical sciences · 2022Observational
- Revising Vital Signs Criteria for Accurate Triage of Older Adults in the Emergency Department.International journal of general medicine · 2022Article
- Pre-hospital triage performance and emergency medical services nurse's field assessment in an unselected patient population attended to by the emergency medical services: a prospective observational study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2020Observational
- Is medical urgency of elderly patients with traumatic brain injury underestimated by emergency department triage?Upsala journal of medical sciences · 2020Article
- Improved interpretable machine learning emergency department triage tool addressing class imbalance.Digital healthArticle
- Predicting Adverse Outcomes in Older Adults with 72-Hour Emergency Department Returns: A Retrospective Cohort Study Developing the Rec-FLASH Score.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingObservational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTriage is widely used in the emergency department (ED) in order to identify the patient's level of urgency and often based on the patient's chief complaint and vital signs. Age has been shown to be independently associated with short term mortality following an ED visit. However, the most commonly used ED triage tools do not include age as an independent core variable. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between age and 7- and 30-day mortality across the triage priority level groups according to Rapid Emergency Triage and Treatment System - Adult (RETTS-A), the most widely used triage tool in Sweden.
methodsIn this cohort, we included all adult patients visiting the ED at the Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden, from 1/1/2010 to 1/1/2015, n = 639,387. All patients were triaged according to the RETTS-A and subsequently separated into three age strata: 18-59, 60-79 and ≥ 80 years. Descriptive analyses and logistic regression was used. The primary outcome measures were 7- and 30-day mortality.
resultsWe observed that age was associated with both 7 and 30-day mortality in each triage priority level group. Mortality was higher in older patients across all triage priority levels but the association with age was stronger in the lowest triage group (p-value for interaction = < 0.001). Comparing patients ≥80 years with patients 18-59 years, older patients had a 16 and 7 fold higher risk for 7 day mortality in the lowest and highest triage priority groups, respectively. The corresponding numbers for 30-d mortality were a 21- and 8-foldincreased risk, respectively.
conclusionCompared to younger patients, patients above 60 years have an increased short term mortality across the RETTS-A triage priority level groups and this was most pronounced in the lowest triage level. The reason for our findings are unclear and data suggest a validation of RETTS-A in aged patients.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.