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Emergency and Disaster Preparedness at a Tertiary Medical City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2020

Housam Adin M. AlHarastani Open the ORCID record for Housam Adin M. AlHarastani [Opens in a new window] ,
Yousef Ibrahim Alawad ,
Bandana Devi ,
Benly G. Mosqueda ,
Vanessa Tamayo ,
Freiha Kyoung ,
Amani Abu Shaheen  and
Shirley Sierra
Housam Adin M. AlHarastani*
Affiliation:
Disaster Management Department, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Yousef Ibrahim Alawad
Affiliation:
Disaster Management Department, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Bandana Devi
Affiliation:
Out-Patient Department, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Benly G. Mosqueda
Affiliation:
Emergency Medicine Administration, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Vanessa Tamayo
Affiliation:
Emergency Medicine Administration, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Freiha Kyoung
Affiliation:
Medical Auditing Department, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Amani Abu Shaheen
Affiliation:
Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Shirley Sierra
Affiliation:
Disaster Management Department, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Housam Adin AlHarastani, PO Box 366497, Riyadh 11393 (e-mail: mdhousam@gmail.com).
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Abstract

Objective:

The aim of this study was to evaluate the readiness of a tertiary medical cityʼs response to a disaster by assessing the hospital resources and knowledge, attitudes, practices, and familiarity of health care providers toward disaster and emergency preparedness.

Methods:

All KFMC (King Fahad Medical City) staff with > 1 year of clinical experience were eligible to participate in a cross-sectional study. Participants responded to the Emergency Preparedness Information Questionnaire (EPIQ), knowledge and practice questionnaires, and a disaster planning attitude checklist. Data about resources were collected using the hospital disaster preparedness self-assessment tool.

Results:

The overall mean knowledge score for disaster and emergency preparedness was 4.4 ± 1.1, and the mean overall familiarity score was 3.43 ± 0.97. Most participants knew that disaster drills (90.2%) and training (74.6%) are ongoing. Sixty-six (21.0%) agreed that KFMC is unlikely to experience a disaster. The highest and lowest EPIQ familiarity scores were for decontamination (83.0%) and accessing critical resources and reporting (64.3%), respectively. Most participants (99.4%) have access to work computers; however, only 53.0% used the Internet to access information on bioterrorism and/or emergency preparedness. The hospital is ready to respond in case of a disaster according to the used tool.

Conclusions:

The participants’ levels of knowledge, practices, and overall familiarity toward emergency and disaster preparedness were satisfactory; however, participant attitudes and familiarity with where and how to access critical resources in the event of an emergency or disaster situations require reinforcement.

Keywords

attitudesdisasterEPIQknowledgepracticespreparednessSaudi Arabia
Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , August 2021 , pp. 458 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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