Simplifying Glasgow Coma Scale Use for Nurses

Abstract

Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was introduced in 1974 as a tool to standardize the assessment of the level of consciousness of patients. Since it was introduced and used, GCS was considered to be the gold standard method for this purpose. Despite plenty of strengths GCS has (i.e. objectivity and easy communication of the results between the health care providers), GCS was considered to be ambiguous and confusing for nurses and infrequent users. Moreover, lack of knowledge and training about GCS might affect the accuracy and inter-rater reliability among health care professionals. The purpose of this paper was to simplify the use of GCS step by step for the beginner health care professionals.