Prepared to Respond? Exploring Personal Disaster Preparedness and Nursing Staff Response to Disasters

This pilot study explored personal disaster preparedness of nursing staff and their ability and willingness to respond following a disaster.

All nurses from a single hospital were invited to participate; 91 completed an online survey asking them to rate their ability and willingness to report to work following the disaster scenarios and to indicate whether they had pursued various preparedness activities. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics using Minitab 17 Statistical Software.

Participants reflected a cross-section of major acute care units and nursing specialties. The majority of participants indicated being able and willing to report to work following the disaster scenarios. Personal disaster preparedness varied, with few activities pursued by the majority. Few scenarios produced a relationship between preparedness activities and ability or willingness to report to work.

Despite the majority of participants indicating they would be able and willing to report to work during a disaster, they acknowledged barriers affecting them. Most disaster scenarios showed no statistically significant relationship with preparedness activities. Nurses should consider barriers that affect their own availability for work following a disaster and identify potential solutions. Future research related to mitigation of possible barriers to surge capacity would be useful.