An Assessment of Saudi Hospitals’ Disaster Preparedness

Majed Mohammed Alsalem,Saad Abdullah Alghanim

doi:10.21601/ejeph/9663

Majed Mohammed Alsalem, Saad Abdullah Alghanim

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.21601/ejeph/9663

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Abstract

Objective: The study aims to assess the level of Saudi Hospital Disaster Preparedness (HDP). Methods: This study has utilized exploratory quantitative design with a structured self-administered questionnaire. It has adopted a convenient sampling technique, which has included nine hospitals within three Saudi Cities (Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam). The questionnaire contains 48 indicators in six HDP domains: planning, structural, non-structural, management, functional, and human resource competency capacities. Results: The level of Saudi HDP was 69.8%. The domain of management capacity had the highest level of preparedness, at 83.6%, while human resources competency capacity was the least prepared, at 63%. The Spearman correlation revealed a positive significant relationship between preparing to respond to a disaster when occur and all HDP capacity indicators, r (46) = 0.424, p = < .001. A one-way ANOVA test showed a significant difference in HDP between the three cities; Riyadh hospitals were the most prepared, F (2, 313) = 4.343, p < .05. It also showed that there were significant differences in preparedness between the MOH, other governmental, and university hospitals; university hospitals were the most prepared, F (2, 313) = 5.087, p < .05. Conclusion: Overall, Saudi hospitals have a high level of HDP, which indicates that they are likely to function well in the eventuality of disasters. There is a great opportunity to strengthen HDP capacities to improve hospital readiness in the medium-long term. The implemented HDP assessment tool should be built into hospitals’ systems and coordinated among involved governmental sectors.

Highlights

Disasters have posed fatal consequences to many countries including Saudi Arabia, which possesses compounding factors such as vast geographical territory, extreme weather fluctuations, mass gatherings (Hajj and Umra), terrorist attacks, and epidemics that could intensify disasters’ consequences
The study has included nine hospitals in three cities in Saudi Arabia. 173 respondents were working in hospitals located in Riyadh city, respondents in Dammam city, and in Jeddah. 37% (117) of the respondents were working in Ministry of Health (MOH) hospitals, 46.2% in other governmental hospitals (146 respondents), and 53 respondents representing 16.7% in University hospitals. 19% of respondents believed that their hospital was not prepared for disasters, and 81% believed they were well prepared
The level Hospital Disaster Preparedness (HDP) management capacity in Saudi hospitals has achieved the highest level among the other main indicators with 83.6% assessment score, which similar to the results of several indictors in another study conducted in Makka city (AlShareef et al, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Disasters have posed fatal consequences to many countries including Saudi Arabia, which possesses compounding factors such as vast geographical territory, extreme weather fluctuations, mass gatherings (Hajj and Umra), terrorist attacks, and epidemics that could intensify disasters’ consequences. Deficiency in hospital preparedness in facing disasters would potentially result in rapid spread of diseases, or loss of lives and properties leaving little time to implement ad-hoc mitigation measures (Kapur and Smith, 2010; Chaffee and Oster, 2005). This deficiency could be attributed to the deficit in HDP capacities including planning, management, structural, non-structural, functional, and human competency (Mulyasari et al, 2013; Kapur and Smith, 2010)

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