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

An effective healthcare system response to various disasters is paramount; however
pertinent related research is still in its infancy, especially in middle- and low-income
countries. Objective: Assess nurses’ and physicians’ familiarity with readiness in managing
disaster and emergency situations. Setting: The emergency department at Alexandria Main
University hospital. Subjects: 108 nurses and 42 physicians. Tool: The 47-item Disaster
Readiness Questionnaire that incorporated the Emergency Preparedness Information
Questionnaire (EPIQ-45 items) and two open ended-questions. Results: The findings revealed
that nurses are less likely to report familiarity than physicians in managing emergency and
disaster situations. Familiarity with emergency preparedness terms and activities, incidents
command system and ethical issues in triage, and epidemiology and surveillance are rated as
the highest domains by the participants. Conclusion: Both nurses and physicians had
significant gaps in their familiarity with the emergency preparedness in disaster management
and 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 to
effectively adopt national standards to manage disasters and include nurses and physicians in
major related learning activities, because experience has suggest a somewhat low overall
perceived competence in managing disaster situations.