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Nursing Students’ Competency to Attend Disaster Situations: A Study in Western Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2021

Fatemeh Kaviani ,
Fatemeh Aliakbari ,
Hojjat Sheikhbardsiri  and
Paul Arbon
Fatemeh Kaviani
Affiliation:
Student Research Committee, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran
Fatemeh Aliakbari*
Affiliation:
Community-Oriented Nursing Midwifery Research Center, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran
Hojjat Sheikhbardsiri
Affiliation:
Health in Disasters and Emergencies Research Center, Institute for Future Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
Paul Arbon
Affiliation:
Torrens Resilience Institute, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
*
Corresponding author: Fatemeh Aliakbari, Email: aliakbarifa@gmail.com.
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Abstract

Objective:

The disaster preparedness of nurses is important as nurses are members of a health care team that needs to work systematically and collaboratively in all conditions. Although education and training naturally underpin effective practice, disaster nursing education is rarely provided to nurses in Iran. Because disaster situations, by definition, overwhelm health services, it is likely that nursing students will be required to join their colleagues in the response. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the competency of nursing students to attend disaster situations.

Methods:

This descriptive, analytical study was conducted in western Iran in 2020. A total of 70 nursing students in the fourth (final) year of their undergraduate nursing education entered the study by a census sampling method. Data collection was undertaken using a validated disaster competency assessment questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 21 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY) with descriptive and analytic tests.

Results:

The mean age of participants was 21.4 ± 2.14 and 57.1% of them were women; 45 participants (64.3%) had received no disaster-related training, and 88.6% had no history of participating in disaster exercises. The total score for nursing students’ competence was 125.58 ± 14.19. There was a significant relationship between the mean score of nursing competence in response to disasters and student history of participating in an exercise and training course (P < 0.001).

Conclusion:

Students’ competence in disaster situations is poor. Awareness of the competence condition of nurses is the first step to improve their preparedness as the most key members of the disaster health team. Conducting disaster-related training may be appropriate. The results of this study can provide evidence for the development of educational policies in disaster nursing education.

Keywords

competencydisaster situationnursingstudents
Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 16 , Issue 5 , October 2022 , pp. 2044 - 2048
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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