Perceived level of disaster preparedness of rural nurses in a midwest community

Disasters can occur anywhere at any time threatening the health of a community. Rural communities are particularly at risk because of scarce resources. Since nurses make up a large portion of the public health workforce in rural communities, it is important for rural health departments and disaster management agencies to continuously assess the level of disaster preparation of nurses in rural communities to understand capacity and to plan appropriate disaster preparedness programs. The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to assess rural nurses' perceived knowledge of disaster preparedness. A convenience sample of 165 registered nurses from a rural local health department, hospital, and community college participated in this study. The Emergency Preparedness Information Questionnaire (EPIQ), developed by Wisniewski, Dennik-Champion, and Peltier's (2004), was used to assess the registered nurses' perception of knowledge on disaster preparedness. Findings from the EPIQ survey tool indicated a low level of self-reported familiarity of preparedness knowledge and perceived deficits in basic knowledge of emergency preparedness. The findings also indicated that the participants were not individually or family prepared for a disaster. Participants did express willingness to participate in trainings on emergency preparedness if available and identified favorable training modalities. This study suggests the need for further research on training needs for the nurses in the rural setting so that they will be able to respond effectively during a disaster.