Awareness of importance of triaging in emergency department in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The emergency department (ED) is an important component of a healthcare system. Increased rates of visiting the ED, even for non-urgent cases, makes it necessary to prioritize patients who require immediate care over those who can wait. This process is called triage. However, although triage helps to deliver efficient service for the more needy patients, it results in delays for others, who may be left unsatisfied as a result. The aim of this research is therefore to assess the public awareness about triage in the ED and its importance in delivering improvements in healthcare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To this end, a cross-sectional research method was adopted to conduct a study on the Saudi population between the periods from 01 November 2022 to 31 November 2022. The study used a self-administrated, validated and translated electronic questionnaire. SPSS software version 23 was used for data analysis. The study included 2056 participants, who reported the major causes for the last ED visit to be abdominal pain (26.4%) and headaches (14.4%). The mean +/- standard deviation (SD) score of knowledge was 8.79 +/- 2.13. Moreover, this mean significantly differed between educational levels (p < 0.001), current jobs (p = 0.001), and residence (p < 0.001). The majority (82.9%) reported that increasing the working hours of primary healthcare (PHC) centers would reduce the ED's crowdedness. The data thus showed there was inadequate knowledge and some gaps regarding triage in the ED among the public population in Saudi Arabia. Educational level, current job and residence were determinants for the level of knowledge. Allocating specialized physicians, improving the primary health care centers facilities, as well as increasing the working hours of the Primary Health Care (PHC) will reduce pressures on EDs.