Background: Little is known about patients’ conceptions of the triage encounter and what the point of the encounter is in the triage.

Aim: To describe the patients’ conceptions of the triage encounter at the emergency department (ED).

Method: Interviews with 20 patients from different triage categories visiting the ED at a central hospital in southern Sweden were analysed using the phenomenographic approach.

Findings: Five encounters emerged based on 16 conceptions: the insecure, humanistic, logistical, information exchange and surrounding encounters.

Conclusions: To facilitate more positive experiences of the triage encounter, the personnel need to care and treat the patients as whole human beings, i.e. in a holistic approach. An improved logistical and informative triage encounter is vital in order to minimize the waiting time and make the waiting time acceptable for patients, as well decreasing worries that arise because of illness in an unknown environment.