Construction and validation of the Emergency Oncology Scale (EMOnco), a risk rating protocol for the triage of cancer patients in acute care settings.

Abstract

Background: Manfredini et al. demonstrate that the new rating protocol, EMOnco, can triage of cancer patients in acute care settings safely, considering their cancer type, stage and treatment histories and oncological emergencies, enabling the appropriate classification from high-risk patients to non-urgent patients.

Background: ■ EMOnco considers variables related to the cancer history and treatment.

Background: ■ Triages patients in the emergency care in less than three minutes.

Background: ■ Cancer patients need priority care regarding infection, and this protocol consider it.

Background: ■ EMOnco has shown to be a valid and reliable scale for the triage of oncological patients in the emergency room or acute care clinics.

Objective: To validate a risk rating scale for triaging of cancer patients in emergency rooms that can identify individuals needing urgent care or in imminent worsening of the clinical condition.

Methods: This is a health instrument validation study developed in the emergency care ward of a Brazilian hospital, a referral center for cancer and hematological diseases. We built the Emergency Oncology Scale (EMOnco) based on literature review and a Delphi survey with 20 experienced oncologists (physicians and nurses). We validated the scale by assessing its construct validity, interobserver agreement and reliability after applying them in a convenience sample of all consecutive patients with cancer who visited the ward between August 2017 and January 2018. We compared the EMOnco Scores with those from other scales, used by six trained nurses: the Emergency Severity Index, the Manchester Triage System, and the Karnofsky Performance Status. We also recorded socio-demographic and clinical features and the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) results in the intensive care unit.

Results: We included 250 patients with locally advanced or recurrent disease and undergoing chemotherapy. EMOnco screening took 2.24 (± 2.9) minutes in average. The interobserver correlation coefficient was 0.9. EMOnco was highly correlated with Emergency Severity Index (r=0.617) and also correlated with Karnofsky Performance Status (0.420) Manchester Triage System (0.491; p<0.001 for all).

Conclusion: EMOnco in Portuguese considers variables related to the cancer history and treatment and has proven to be a valid and reliable for the risk classification of oncological patients in emergency care services.