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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Deanna E. Grimes, DrPH, RN, FAAN, School of Nursing, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 6901 Bertner Avenue, Room 716, Houston, TX 77030-3901, 713-500-2117, Deanna.C.Grimes@uth.tmc.edu and Elnora P. Mendias, PhD, RN, School of Nursing, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Blvd., Galveston, TX 77555-1029.

Community health planners must accurately predict staffing needs and availability during a public health emergency. A few studies have addressed health care workers' intentions to respond during emergencies and suggest that response will be low. This study examined factors associated with nurses' intentions to respond to a bioterrorism event following participation in a 2-hour bioterrorism class. The sample was nurses who attended a 2-hour bioterrorism class offered in multiple health care settings on the Texas Gulf Coast and agreed to participate. Participants completed three investigator-developed instruments that measured Participant Characteristics, Knowledge of Bioterrorism, and Intention to care for patients given 10 scenarios reflecting different levels of infection risk. Selected Characteristics of 300 nurses who completed the study instruments: 33% had a Bachelor's and 33% had a Master's degree; 97% had an RN or APN license; 40% were staff nurses and mean years in nursing was 20. Test of knowledge: Inter-item reliability was .79 on the 17 items. Scores ranged from 6% to 100% with a mean and median of 71%. Intention to Respond: Each of 10 scenarios was scored from 0-10 according to likelihood of caring for patients in the scenario. Chronbach's Alpha reliability was .913. Scores ranged from a low of 5.25 (if the disease can't be prevented with a vaccine, antibiotics or antiinfectives) to a high of 8.5 (if the disease can be treated). Only 15 nurses answered that they would care for patients in all 10 scenarios. The implications of these and further results will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: