Nursing in disasters: A review of existing models

Since nurses play an important role in responding to disasters, evaluating their knowledge on common patterns of disasters is a necessity. This study examined researches conducted using disaster nursing as well as the models adopted. It provides a critical analysis of the models available for disaster nursing.

International electronic databases including Scopus, PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), and Google Scholar were investigated with no limitation on type of articles, between 1st January 1980 and 31st January 2016. The search terms and strategy were as follows: (Disaster^∗ OR Emergenc^∗) AND (Model OR Theory OR Package OR Pattern) AND (Nursing OR Nurse^∗). They were applied for titles, abstracts and key words. This resulted in the generation of disaster nursing models.

Out of the 1983 publications initially identified, the final analysis was conducted on 8 full text articles. These studies presented seven models. These evinced a diverse set of models with regard to the domains and the target population.

Although, disaster nursing models will inform disaster risk reduction strategies, attempts to systematically do so are in preliminary phases. Further investigation is needed to develop a domestic nursing model in the event of disasters.