ENHANCING NURSES’ CAPACITY IN MANAGING MASS-CASUALTY VICTIMS THROUGH TRIAGE TRAINING AT A DISASTER REFERRAL HOSPITAL

Abstrak

A mass-casualty incident (MCI) is an event in which the number and severity of victims exceed the available resources, thereby demanding rapid and accurate decision-making. Triage is central in such situations because it determines the priority of treatment so that limited resources can deliver the greatest benefit to the greatest number of victims. Nurses at disaster referral hospitals play a strategic role as triage performers, so that their capacity and knowledge need to be continuously strengthened. This community service activity aimed to enhance nurses’ capacity in managing mass-casualty victims through triage training. The activity was conducted in 2024 with 20 nurses at a disaster referral  Siti Rahmah Islamic Hospital in Padang as the target participants.

The implementation methods comprised lectures, demonstrations, and triage simulations, accompanied by knowledge evaluation through a pre-test and a post-test. The results showed a marked improvement in knowledge: the good-knowledge category rose from 30% to 85%, the fair category fell from 45% to 15%, and the poor category fell from 25% to 0%. The activity concludes that triage training is effective in improving nurses’ knowledge in managing mass-casualty victims.