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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Deborah Fromer, MPH, Elizabeth Ablah, PhD, MPH, Ruth Wetta-Hall, RN, PhD, MPH, MS, and Craig A. Molgaard, PhD, MPH. Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, 1010 N. Kansas, Wichita, KS 67214, 316-293-2627, dfromer@kumc.edu

Background: The clinical knowledge, experience, awareness, and understanding possessed by most nurses provides a baseline for building the skills required to respond to emergencies. This study describes the responses and reactions of participating nurses to the “Can it Happen in Kansas: Response to Terrorism and Emerging Infections” training program. Methods: A terrorism preparedness questionnaire was developed to assess competencies and learning objectives. These were measured at pre, post, and three and ten months post training. Results: Nurses made up 43%, or 407 participants of the training program. At pretest, nurses reported feeling more alert to agroterrorist attacks in Kansas, and reported feeling better able to describe their roles in incident response and the Kansas bioterrorism plan, than at posttest (p<0.001). At pretest nurses reported being better able to recognize patient symptoms of radiation and emerging infection, and describe medical management of a chemical exposure (p<0.001). Following this multidisciplinary educational opportunity, or posttest, all categories of training objectives scores decreased (p<0.001), then rose slightly at 3 and 10 months posttest (p<0.001, p<0.001 respectively). This program appeared to raise the nurses' awareness of their need for interdisciplinary emergency preparedness training. Conclusion: Nurses are trusted health care providers in hospitals, clinics, homes, schools and other community settings and have been called on to respond to numerous emergencies and disasters. This pilot study described may offer models for other states considering emergency and terrorism preparedness curricula and evaluation methodologies to train nurses.

Learning Objectives:

• 1.Discuss the nurses role in emergency preparedness
• 2.Analyze personal preparedness for an emergency situation
• 3.Apply the 4 HRSA competencies for emergency preparedness

Keywords: Emerging Health Issues, Public Health Nursing

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered