Nurses Readiness Regarding Disaster Preparedness at Alnoor Hospital in Makkah

Abstract

Introduction : Disaster occurs every day somewhere in the world with dramatic impact on individuals, families and communities. Nurses are the largest group of health care providers and are considered essential personnel in disaster preparedness. Aim: To assess the level of nurses’ readiness regarding disaster preparedness at alnoor hospital in Makkah Method: a quantitative cross sectional descriptive design. Setting: the study conducted at Alnoor Hospital in, medical, surgical, emergency and critical care unit Departments. Subjects: a convenient sample of 194 nurses was selected to participate in the study. Tool: the study included one tool which divided into two parts, Part I. demographic and work related data, and part II.  Nurses’ readiness regarding hospital disaster preparedness questionnaire. Result: Nearly half of the nurses (49%) had moderate level of readiness regarding disaster preparedness. There was no significant relation between nurses’ readiness with age, gender, educational level of nurses, years of experience and attend of previous drill workshop (p. 0.196, 0.418, 0.805, 0.133, 0.216) respectively. While there was a significant relationship between nurses’ readiness for disaster preparedness with the specialty practice area of nurses, current professional role, and actively participated in an actual major disaster event (p. 0.000, 0.004, 0.001) respectively. Conclusion: concerning total readiness nearly half of the nurses had moderate level of readiness regarding disaster preparedness'. Moreover, more than half of nurses had moderate level of readiness regarding emergency preparedness terms and activities, communication and connectivity, assessing critical and nurse's assessment readiness. While less than half of nurses had moderate level of readiness regarding ethical issues in triage, epidemiology and surveillance, decontamination and psychological issue. Recommendations: Further education and training courses are needed to enhance nurses’ readiness for disaster preparedness.

Keywords: disaster, readiness, preparedness, Nurses

DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/71-07

Publication date: February 29^th 2020