European Educational Programmes in Health Emergency and Disaster Management: An Integrative Review

Abstract

There is a need for trained health professionals who can swiftly respond to disasters occurring worldwide. Little is known about whether the currently available programmes in disaster management are in line with the recommendations of expert researchers. Our objective was to qualitatively review the characteristics of European educational programmes in health emergency and disaster management and to provide guidance to help improve their curricula. We carried out an integrative review to extract the main characteristics of the 2020/21 programmes available. We identified 34 programmes, the majority located in Spain, the UK or France. The primary qualification types awarded were master’s degrees, half of them lasting one year, and the most common teaching method was in person. Almost all of the programmes used a virtual university classroom, a third offered multidisciplinary disaster management content and teachers, and half of them employed situational simulations. The quality of European educational programmes in health emergency and disaster management has improved, especially in terms of using more practical and interactive teaching methodologies and in the inclusion of relevant topics such as communication, psychological approaches and evaluation of the interventions. However, generally, the educational programmes in disaster management have not yet incorporated the skills related to the intercultural and interprofessional awareness aspects.

Dental professionals’ attitude and willingness to respond during disaster events: a cross-sectional study

“…This is in congruence to the results of another study conducted elsewhere among a group of health professionals (12). Long-term training programs with comprehensive curriculum should be included in undergraduate dental courses to strengthen dental professionals' ability while combating any disaster (13). Almost 90% of subjects in the present study agreed in this regard.…”

Évaluation du risque par les professionnels de la santé et les équipes de secours lors d’incidents chimiques

“…L'Union européenne a proposé en 2014 un programme éducationnel relatif à la gestion de désastres et de crises appelé « Disaster Training Curriculum ». Ce projet proposait une approche holistique et un programme standardisé pour tous les acteurs potentiels concernés dans la préparation et la gestion d'une situation de crise (8). En Belgique, sur 100 hôpitaux participants, 71 % ont estimé être à risque d'incidents chimiques, biologiques, radiologiques et nucléaires (CBRN).…”

Exploring Nurses' Perceptions of Disaster Preparedness Competencies

“…Previous research also found that nurses with a high education level tend to have good critical thinking skills and decision-making abilities (Chiang et al, 2020). In order to increase the competence of disaster nurses, it is essential that specific disaster modules be included in nurses' formal education (Ranse et al, 2022;Veenema et al, 2019); however, the implementation of the majority of disaster education curricula has not been optimal (Al Harthi et al, 2020;Perpiñá-Galvañ et al, 2021;Ranse et al, 2022). For formal disaster education to be effective, it must be continuous (Perpiñá-Galvañ et al, 2021) and must be a combination of Nurse Media Journal of Nursing, 13(2), 2023, 242 Copyright © 2023, NMJN, e-ISSN 2406-8799, p-ISSN 2087-7811 education, training, and simulation using settings that closely resemble actual conditions (Perpiñá-Galvañ et al, 2021;Ranse et al, 2022).…”