Nurse Practitioners’ Perceptions of Crisis Leadership and Their Readiness for Public Health Emergencies

Abstract

Background and PurposeDisasters and public health emergencies are becoming more intense and frequent. Opportunities to develop nurse leadership equipped to deal with surge capacity, reduced staffing, austere conditions, and decisiveness under stress is now more important than ever. Nurse practitioners (NPs) can be a formidable force in not only responding to public health emergencies but in their mitigation and prevention, thus reducing suffering and loss of life. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between perceived ability of NPs to make critical decisions with minimal information and their perception of public health emergency preparedness. MethodsThis study employs a descriptive, cross-sectional design. NPs were invited to complete an online survey on crisis leadership and their perceived level of public health emergency preparedness. Correlational analysis was used to determine the linear relationship between the key study variables. ResultsNinety-one NPs participated in the study. There was a statistically significant relationship between the participants’ perception of their crisis leadership and their public health emergency preparedness. Approximately half of the participants (46.3%) rated themselves as very familiar or familiar with public health emergency readiness. ConclusionsThere are opportunities to prepare NPs in readiness for public health emergencies given that more than half of the participants were not familiar with readiness steps. ImplicationsPublic health emergency training can be implemented in both academic and continuing education offerings. In addition, NPs can also be prepared for crisis leadership as part of the educational offerings.