Disaster Preparedness in an Australian Urban Trauma Center: Staff Knowledge and Perceptions

Abstract

Australian hospital staff are under-prepared to respond to a disaster because of a lack of education, insufficient simulation exercises, and limited disaster experience. The absence of specific national standards and guidelines through which individual hospitals can develop their capabilities further compounds the poverty in preparedness.

Readiness of hospital nurses for disaster responses in Taiwan: A cross-sectional study

“…Our results from 311 hospital nurses in Taiwan showed that they had the greatest readiness to respond to a disaster outside the hospital in terms of clinical management and the least readiness in selfprotection. Overall, the majority of these hospital nurses reported poor readiness for disaster responses, consistent with previous findings for 140 hospital nurses in Australia (Corrigan and Samrasinghe, 2012), 620 hospital nurses in the US (Baack and Alfred, 2013), and 164 nurses in Hong Kong (Fung et al, 2008). Participants in our study with disasterrelated training or experience in disaster response were more likely to perceive readiness for future disaster events, as previously reported from Singapore (Lim et al, 2013).…”

Disaster preparedness among nurses: a systematic review of literature

“…This is reflected in findings from other studies that explore nurses’ experiences of disaster response (Arbon et al. ; Corrigan & Samrasinghe ; Hammad et al. ).…”

“…). Local and international initiatives are in place to adequately prepare nurses and other healthcare workers to respond effectively to disasters through extensive disaster training, disaster drills and exercises, and the provision of disaster management courses with the expectation that nurses should be able to deliver adequate nursing care to the communities affected by disasters (Corrigan & Samrasinghe ; Ibrahim ; Perron et al. ; World Health Organization (WHO) ).…”

Nurses' Preparedness for Disaster in South Khorasan Province, Ian

“…Nurses' average score was also found moderate in the studies by Oztekin (2016) in Japan, and Chi Tzeng (2016) in Taiwan [19,20]. Nurses' average score is also found weak in the studies conducted in USA, Australia, Hong Kong, and Egypt [9,11,18,21,22]. This difference might be attributed to study topics, setting and regional conditions, the type of hospital, and the way to develop and implement educational programs in relation to disaster preparedness.…”