Developing and evaluating a Disaster Management Assessment Tool for Health Care Practitioners

Area of Science:

• Disaster medicine
• Healthcare management
• Public health preparedness

Background:

• Increasing frequency and intensity of global disasters necessitate robust healthcare practitioner preparedness.
• A significant gap exists in validated assessment tools for healthcare practitioner disaster management skills.
• This study introduces the Disaster Management Assessment Tool for Health Care Practitioners (DMAT_HCP).

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a comprehensive and validated tool for assessing healthcare practitioner disaster management capabilities.
• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the DMAT_HCP.

Main Methods:

• The DMAT_HCP was designed based on the Disaster Management Framework and literature review.
• Content validity was assessed by experts, and face validity by healthcare practitioners.
• The tool's structural validity, construct validity, and internal consistency were evaluated using factor analysis and reliability tests on 107 practitioners.

Main Results:

• The DMAT_HCP demonstrated satisfactory content validity (CVI > 0.83).
• Factor analysis identified six key factors: knowledge, attitude (two sub-domains), practice, willingness to practice, and organization-based management, explaining 77.9% of the variance.
• The tool showed strong convergent and divergent validity, with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.90 overall, ranging from 0.89 to 0.97 for sections).

Conclusions:

• The DMAT_HCP is a conceptually and methodologically valid and reliable assessment tool.
• It accurately measures disaster management constructs and distinguishes between unrelated ones.
• The DMAT_HCP is suitable for global application across diverse healthcare professions, settings, disaster types, and management phases.