Nurses' knowledge levels and preparedness for disasters: A systematic review

Abstract

ObjectiveNurses, who play a key role in disasters, should be sufficiently prepared and have good knowledge in responding to disasters to reduce the negative consequences on the population affected by disasters as disasters increase globally. The study aimed to investigate the results of peer-reviewed publications that measure nurses' level of knowledge and preparedness for disasters. MethodThe systematic review model was used in this study. Scientific studies on disaster preparedness of nurses in Turkish and English between 2015-and 2019 were systematically examined. Sciencedirect, Ulakbim and Medline/PubMed databases were used for the literature search. In the study, the keywords ‘disaster’, ‘disaster preparedness', ‘disaster competencies', ‘disaster nursing’, ‘disaster information’ and ‘nurse’ was searched. Seventeen (17) research articles conducted with nurses suitable for the study were included and analyzed. ResultsStudies commonly report that nurses are not sufficiently prepared for disasters and are not confident in responding to disasters effectively. It was seen that the factors that increase the preparedness for disaster response are previous disaster response experience and disaster-related education level. ConclusionThe results of this systematic review show that it is necessary to develop better education and training programs to strengthen the knowledge and skills of nurses, especially in disaster preparedness.