(RS22) Perception Towards the Preparedness for Disaster Management Among Nurses in Community Clinics

Introduction:

Disaster is an extraordinary event that occurs abruptly and may cause damage to people and the environment. Nurses hold an important role in disaster management incident command system. Nevertheless, their lack of knowledge and experience in managing a disaster incident is detrimental to the system. This study evaluated the knowledge of disaster preparedness among nurses in community clinics.

Results:

This study found that the knowledge and the perceived skills of the community clinics nurses were moderate (Mean= 3.65, SD= 0.61)(Mean= 3.68, SD= 0.56) with regard to the disaster preparedness. Nonetheless, they were interested to learn disaster preparedness (n=227, 87.3%) and were confident as first responders of disaster (Mean= 3.88, SD= 0.61). Their lack of involvement in disaster preparedness plan (Mean= 3.23, SD= 0.90) was attributed to the lack of leadership figure in disaster situation                    (Mean= 3.06, SD= 0.92).

Discussion/Conclusion :

As the first responder, nurses in community clinics need to be equipped with knowledge of disaster management.