Emergency Preparedness and Perceived Competence of Health Care Providers in Disaster: An Egyptian Study

An effective healthcare system response to various disasters is paramount; howeverpertinent related research is still in its infancy, especially in middle- and low-incomecountries. Objective: Assess nurses’ and physicians’ familiarity with readiness in managingdisaster and emergency situations. Setting: The emergency department at Alexandria MainUniversity hospital. Subjects: 108 nurses and 42 physicians. Tool: The 47-item DisasterReadiness Questionnaire that incorporated the Emergency Preparedness InformationQuestionnaire (EPIQ-45 items) and two open ended-questions. Results: The findings revealedthat nurses are less likely to report familiarity than physicians in managing emergency anddisaster situations. Familiarity with emergency preparedness terms and activities, incidentscommand system and ethical issues in triage, and epidemiology and surveillance are rated asthe highest domains by the participants. Conclusion: Both nurses and physicians hadsignificant gaps in their familiarity with the emergency preparedness in disaster managementand raised concerns about lack of training, unavailability of strategic and operational plans,and unfamiliarity with roles, procedures and assignment in disaster situations.Recommendations: It is proposed that hospital managers must look for opportunities toeffectively adopt national standards to manage disasters and include nurses and physicians inmajor related learning activities, because experience has suggest a somewhat low overallperceived competence in managing disaster situations.