Disaster preparedness among nurses of developing countries: An integrative review

Nurse preparedness and prompt response are essential to save lives and reduce the consequences of disasters and emerging pandemics. This paper aimed to synthesize the available evidence that demonstrates the adequacy on disaster preparedness among nurses in developing countries.

Five stages of the integrative review approach were employed. Seventeen articles from 2010 to 2019 were selected using different databases after a quality appraisal performed by two researchers independently. The findings were summarized and synthesized based on the themes concerning disaster preparedness among nurses.

The major themes emerged were disaster knowledge and perceived self-preparedness. Nurses were found to have a weak-to-average or a low-to-moderate level of disaster preparedness based on their knowledge and perception. Education and training were discovered to be vital factors, often requiring a variety of strategies, for the enhancement of the nurses' preparedness level.

This review concludes that nurses in developing countries remain inadequately prepared on all domains of disaster nursing competencies. Therefore, providing well-designed disaster nursing educational packages, training manuals, and support to attend disaster drills or partake in actual disaster events are essential to the enhancement of disaster preparedness and the retention of relevant skills among nurses in all sectors.