Emergency Healthcare Providers’ Perceptions of Preparedness and Willingness to Work during Disasters and Public Health Emergencies

Abstract

This study evaluates the perceptions of preparedness and willingness to work during disasters and public health emergencies among 213 healthcare workers at hospitals in the southern region of Saudi Arabia by using a quantitative survey (Fight or Flight). The results showed that participants’ willingness to work unconditionally during disasters and emergencies varied based on the type of condition: natural disasters (61.97%), seasonal influenza pandemic (52.58%), smallpox pandemic (47.89%), SARS/COVID-19 pandemic (43.56%), special flu pandemic (36.15%), mass shooting (37.56%), chemical incident and bombing threats (31.92%), biological events (28.17%), Ebola outbreaks (27.7%), and nuclear incident (24.88%). A lack of confidence and the absence of safety assurance for healthcare workers and their family members were the most important reasons cited. The co-variation between age and education versus risk and danger by Spearman’s rho confirmed a small negative correlation between education and danger at a 95% level of significance, meaning that educated healthcare workers have less fear to work under dangerous events. Although the causes of unsuccessful management of disasters and emergencies may vary, individuals’ characteristics, such as lack of confidence and emotional distractions because of uncertainty about the safety issues, may also play a significant role. Besides educational initiatives, other measures, which guarantee the safety of healthcare providers and their family members, should be established and implemented.

Cohort research analysis of disaster experience, preparedness, and competency-based training among nurses

“…Finally, earlier studies have shown that the knowledge of own workplace preparedness in responding to disasters, increases the willingness to work during a disaster and acquire the knowledge necessary to respond [ 30 ]. The fact that our respondents had to choose their working place due to having several workplaces might be another limitation.…”

California and Oregon NICU Wildfire Disaster Preparedness Tools

“…To give another global perspective, a 2020 study evaluated Saudi Arabia healthcare workers' perceptions of preparedness and willingness to work during disasters in a survey; 62% of participants were willing to work unconditionally when facing natural disasters, showing how the medical community often sacrifices to help patients, even in times of crisis [19]. Evidence from our surveys and interviews showed Western United States NICUs healthcare workers also sacrificed their time and efforts to help.…”

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“…However, the inadequate level of public compliance with these public health strategies has resulted in mandatory contact tracing strategies as part of a government strategy in some countries [8,17,21]. Within the European Union (EU), in some nations, authorities together with telecommunications providers started sharing people's anonymous location data on map concentrations, respecting the Europe's privacy laws and individuals' rights to privacy [8,9,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”