The Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool: psychometric testing of the Classical Arabic version

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Public Health
• Emergency Management

Background:

• Increasing global disasters necessitate preparedness among healthcare providers, particularly nurses.
• Effective disaster management requires evaluating nurses' knowledge and skills across pre-disaster, during-disaster, and post-disaster phases.
• Educational programs must be informed by reliable assessments of disaster preparedness.

Purpose of the Study:

• Translate the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool into Arabic.
• Determine the psychometric properties (reliability, validity, factorial structure) of the Arabic version.
• Establish a culturally relevant tool for assessing nursing disaster preparedness in Arabic-speaking populations.

Main Methods:

• Translation followed Beaton's guidelines, with expert validation and a pilot study.
• Data collected via self-administered questionnaires from 474 Jordanian Registered Nurses.
• Principal component analysis used for construct validity and Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency.

Main Results:

• The Arabic Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool demonstrated strong reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.90).
• Factor analysis identified three key components: knowledge, skills, and post-disaster management, explaining 64% of the variance.
• The tool exhibits good construct validity, supporting its psychometric integrity.

Conclusions:

• The Arabic Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool is a reliable and valid measure for assessing nursing disaster preparedness.
• The tool can be confidently used with Arabic-speaking nurses to evaluate their knowledge, skills, and management capabilities.
• Findings support the development of targeted educational programs to improve nurses' disaster readiness.