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Bantul in Central Java was the most severely damaged area by a devastating earthquake in May 2006. Even after being victims themselves, nurses and midwives at public health centers worked devotedly. The purpose of this paper is to identify the nurses’ and midwives’ perceptions and understanding of their roles, as well as the needs of training in disaster preparedness and management.

Focus group discussions and questionnaire survey were conducted with 11 nurses and 11 midwives of public health centers in Bantul. Content analysis was applied to analyze transcripts of the focus group discussions and the responses to questionnaire.

Health care for survivors and community were provided by highly committed health professionals supported in strong community resilience. Donors driven relief programs tended to be unorganized and insensitive for local health providers. Besides, organized disaster management trainings are strongly needed to develop disaster nursing and preparedness.

Embedded problems of local health system and current nursing practice were highlighted.

Focus group discussions provided vital information that can and must be used to improve disaster response capabilities. Moreover, it was equally it is crucial to examine carefully what unfolded during post-disaster intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of nurses’ competencies while providing care to COVID-19 patients.

A descriptive, correlational design was used to collect data from nurses who were providing care to COVID-19 patients at four public hospitals.

A total of 377 nurses (64.5% females) aged 23–50 consented to participate and completed the survey. The mean score of nurses’ competencies in providing care to COVID-19 patients was 2.5 (SD = 0.81). The results of correlation coefficient tests disclosed a significant positive correlation between reported competence level and sex r_pb (377) = 0.18, p < 0.01; working area r_pb (377) = 0.2, p < 0.01; disaster experience r_pb (377) = 0.16, p < 0.01; disaster education r_pb (377) = 0.25, p < 0.01; and disaster training r_pb (377) = 0.31, p < 0.01.

The COVID-19 pandemic response heavily relied on nurses. However, they had a gap in clinical competencies that indicates an urgent need to incorporate disaster management courses in basic nursing education and to update training in hospitals based on nurses’ needs to improve their capabilities in dealing with COVID-19 pandemic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigated the perceived level of Jordanian nurses’ competencies in providing care to COVID-19.

The number of disasters has increased by 30 per cent worldwide in the past 30 years. Nurses constitute the largest clinical group within a hospital and their ability to respond to disasters is crucial to the provision of quality patient care. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a four-year disaster preparedness partnership between two tertiary hospitals from the perspective of executive staff, senior clinical managers and specialist nurses. The national disaster response centre was situated in one hospital and the other hospital was located 3,500 km away.

The intervention involved selected nurses working at the partner hospital to enable familiarisation with policies, procedures and layout in the event of a request for back-up in the event of a national disaster. A mixed-methods design was used to elicit the strengths and limitations of the partnership. Surveys, in-depth interviews and focus groups were used.

In total, 67 participants provided evaluations including ten executive staff, 17 clinical management nurses and 38 nurses from the disaster response team. Improvements in some aspects of communication were recommended. The successful recruitment of highly skilled and committed nurses was a strength. A disaster exercise resulted in 79 per cent of nurses, able and willing to go immediately to the partner hospital for up to 14 days.

During the four year partnership, no actual disaster occurred that required support. This limited the ability to fully trial the partnership in an authentic manner. The disaster exercise, although helpful in trialling the processes and assessing nurse availability, it has some limitations.

This innovative partnership successfully prepared specialist nurses from geographically distant hospitals for a disaster response. This together with a willingness to be deployed enhanced Australia’s capacity in the event of a disaster.

Disaster relief workers experience psychological and physical needs as a direct consequence of their disaster involvement. While this impact has been acknowledged, relatively little is known about the nature of the psychosocial demands generated by prolonged exposure. Developing both comprehensive preparatory and support programmes for relief workers will require that the nature of these demands, their impact on personnel, and their implications for disaster management are documented. Describes the experiences of a group of nurses who provided relief care in Romanian orphanages in the aftermath of the 1989 revolution in that country. Suggests that prolonged disaster exposure creates specific personal demands and operational problems. Problems were described in relation to operational practices and national issues (e.g. political and cultural factors). Describes the implications of these factors for relief worker wellbeing and relief operation effectiveness, together with suggestions for managing these demands.

The purpose of this study is to identify the preparedness of disaster mitigation agency officers in both urban and rural areas as high vulnerability zones in Aceh, Indonesia, in dealing with disasters.

This cross-sectional study adopted a conceptual framework from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and United Nations of Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) (LIPI-UNESCO/ISDR, 2006), explaining the study of community preparedness in anticipating earthquake and tsunami disasters. The framework of the study consists of five disaster preparedness parameters, namely, knowledge and attitude to face disasters, policies and guidelines, emergency response plans, disaster early warning systems and mobilization of resources. This conceptual framework was developed after the 2004 tsunami through an analysis study in the three provinces in Indonesia (Aceh, Padang and Bengkulu) experiencing earthquakes and tsunamis. This conceptual framework serves as a guideline and is in line with the objective of the regional disaster management Agency to reduce disaster risk through increasing community preparedness, especially providers or officers in anticipating disasters.

There was a significant difference in disaster preparedness among officers from the urban and rural areas. The area size, location accessibility, the communication network and disaster detection and warning facilities could associate with the results.

The respondents were selected from only two districts in Aceh Province, Indonesia, which are vulnerable to disasters. The study only identifies the disaster preparedness among disaster management agency officers (DMAOs) adopted from LIPI-UNESCO/ISDR about community preparedness in anticipating disasters particularly tsunami and earthquake. Therefore, the results of this study may have limited generalizability to other areas in Indonesia and beyond.

The results of this study could possibly serve as recommendations for policymakers and disaster management agencies, particularly in rural areas to prepare contingency plans that involve both internal and external institutions to arrange the regulations related to community-based emergency response plans and disaster early warning systems. Such programs of education, training and disaster drill needed to be in place and conducted regularly for the officers in a rural area. Finally, the other sub-scales showed no difference in disaster preparedness, however, collaboration and support to each other in disaster risk reduction plan by improving the capacity building, policy enhancement and disaster management guidelines are required. Also, attempts to optimize logistics adequacy, budget allocations and disaster preparedness education and training for both DMAOs are strongly recommended through the lens of the study. The results of the study might useful for further research that could be developed based on this current study.

The emergency response plans and disaster early warning systems were significantly different between the rural and urban officers in disaster preparedness. Attending disaster management programs, experiences in responding to disasters and the availability of facilities and funds could be considered in ascertaining the preparedness of officers to deal with disasters.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the level of disaster preparedness of institutional care and sheltered housing services provided by the private sector in Finland.

A web-based questionnaire was completed by businesses producing institutional care and sheltered housing services in Finland. They answered questions on disaster preparedness, impacts of recent hazards, measures taken during the hazards and connections to disaster risk management actors and relatives of their residents during the hazards.

The study showed that only 19 percent of the private service providers had a disaster preparedness plan, and only 11 percent reported that it was a requirement agreed on with the service purchaser. The size of the unit predicted only partly the differences in the level of preparedness. The major impacts of storms were on energy supply, leading to disruptions in the daily activities of the services.

The most vulnerable to disasters are people dependent on others, which include those receiving social services. Consequently, this study recommends that preparedness planning should be legally mandated requirement for all social service providers. In addition, the local governments’ service purchasers should include private services in their disaster preparedness activities.

Private businesses are increasingly involved in producing social services in Finland; hence, their preparedness to face hazards and connection with disaster risk management partners is vital. This study increases knowledge of private institutional care and sheltered housing services’ disaster preparedness, which has seldom been the focus of studies.

The aim of this study is to investigate the roles of psychiatric mental health nurses during their work experiences in inpatient clinical settings.

A focus group of 10 graduate psychiatric nurses with more than two years’ practice in inpatient psychiatric settings reflected on their last six months’ work placements and continuous employment. The transcripts and field notes were analyzed through thematic analysis of inductive data.

Two main themes emerged: management roles and clinical roles. The participants reflected on caring activities and obstacles encountered in fulfilling their professional roles.

Multiple practice issues emerged. The participants perceived that psychiatric nurse specialists are required to perform more caring functions than practicable in the inpatient setting due to an excess of noncaring duties, structural minimization of the caring role and inadequate training. They felt that many of the functions performed were not within their expectations of the caring role of a psychiatric nurse specialist and believed that changes in nurse education and attention to clarification of nurses’ roles might enhance the role they play in patient care.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a partnership with specialized nurses from geographically disparate hospitals to provide critical support in national disasters.

The Australian Government established the National Critical Care Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC) within Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH). A partnership with the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) occurred to support RDH during national disasters. PAH nurses undertook two-week rotations to RDH in readiness for deployment. PAH, NCCTRC and RDH nurses’ perceptions of the efficacy of the nurse rotations were explored in surveys and focus groups.

PAH nurses felt they were well equipped for practice in RDH and the partnership developed professional reciprocity with the PAH nurses feeling respected, valued and part of the RDH team. This finding of adequate preparation and effective integration was consistent with the perceptions of senior staff from the participating organizations.

This unique partnership created a well-prepared team to provide support in a national disaster.

The number of care‐dependent people will rise in future. Therefore, it is important to support home health care (HHC) providers with suitable methods and information, especially in times of disasters. The purpose of this paper is to reveal potential threats that influence HHC and propose an option to incorporate these threats into the planning and scheduling of HHC services.

This paper reveals the different conditions and potential threats for HHC in rural and urban areas. Additionally, the authors made a disaster vulnerability analysis, based on literature research and the experience of the Austrian Red Cross (ARC), one of the leading HHC providers in Austria. An optimization approach is applied for rural HHC that also improves the satisfaction levels of clients and nurses. A numerical study with real life data shows the impacts of different flood scenarios.

It can be concluded that HHC service providers will be faced with two challenges in the future: an increased organizational effort and the need for an anticipatory risk management. Hence, the development and use of powerful decision support systems are necessary.

For an application in urban regions new methods have to be developed due to the use of different modes of transport by the nurses. Additionally, an extension of the planning horizon and triage rules will be part of future research.

The presented information on developments and potential threats for HHC are very useful for service providers. The introduced software prototype has proven to be a good choice to optimize and secure HHC; it is going to be tested in the daily business of the ARC.

Even in the case of disasters, HHC services must be sustained to avoid health implications. This paper makes a contribution to securing HHC, also with respect to future demographic trends.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge there are no comprehensive studies that focus on disaster management in the field of HHC. Additionally, the combination with optimization techniques provides useful insights for decision makers in that area.

The purpose of this paper is to identify innovations and lessons learned from interviews with members of the multidisciplinary healthcare team who participated in the response to the 22 February earthquake, affecting the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island.

Narratives from individual staff members who were associated with the Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department response were recorded and analysed. This data, together with other contextual documents have been used to identify the responses of healthcare workers to an unexpected natural disaster. Perspectives were sought from a range of individuals, including allied health professionals, social workers, Maori health workers, orderlies, medical and nursing staff.

The individual as well as the organisational responses to the earthquake events are significant, and need to be considered in relation to future planning and responses. In particular, the importance of encouraging and supporting a culture which values innovation and responsiveness was identified. While specific, practical responses to the earthquake disaster are noted, it is also important to acknowledge the implication for individuals of an acute, unanticipated event.

The findings from this study have the potential to illuminate possible responses in other crisis situations, and to guide the development of targeted support measures in response to disaster events.

Little documentation has occurred to date relating the experiences of health care responders who are not only reacting to a natural disaster, but are also part of it. This is a unique and valuable perspective that has relevance within a number of settings.