1

Rise of Industrial Age

Student Name

Institution Afflation

Instructor’s Name

Course

Due Date
 2

Nurses’ Preparedness and Perceived Competence in Managing Disasters

Identify the research problem.

In recent years, the prevalence of natural as well as human-induced disasters have increased

and it was found that in most U.S. states, the majority of nurses are unprepared for managing

such situations. Thus, this study was done to determine the current status of nurse regarding

their preparedness for managing the disasters, so that they can help the communities.

Identify the research purpose.

The purpose of this research study was to analyse the disaster preparedness of rural Texas

nurses and to present an in-depth analysis as well as accurate description of the factors that

further affect them, so that it can be used as context for future disaster planning.

Summarize the review of literature.

During disasters, the nursing staffs are much in demand as compared to other healthcare

professionals (Lavin, 2006). The preparedness of nurses in this regard is very importance to

mitigate the detrimental effects for such disasters to the person, property, and community

(Fung, Lai, & Loke, 2009). However, majority of nurses in U.S. are unprepared to manage

such situations and the responsible factors may include age, lack of education regarding such

situation in nursing schools, lack of understanding of communication methods, lack of

knowledge of plan in the practice setting (Goodhue, Burke, Chamber, Ferrer & Upperman,

2010), and perception. Furthermore, the training in these areas are inadequate, and research

regarding the nursing preparedness is also limited (Coyle et al., 2007). Apart from that, the

nurses working in rural areas have unique challenges in this regard due to the chances of

geographic isolation, delays in initiation of treatment, etc. This, current study was done by

keeping above facts in mind.

 3

Identify the nursing framework. The theoretical framework of this study was based on certain

aspects of Deci’s Selfdeterminism Theory (SDT). This theory uses the perspective of organism,

because according

to this, the individuals are active organisms and they want to face the challenges for

achieving the personal growth and development (Deci & Ryan, 2002). In this research, it

was

determined that what factors may affect the actions of nurses during their personal growth

and development regarding the disaster preparedness.

Identify the research questions and hypotheses.

The research questions were:

1. Regarding the disaster preparedness, what is the perceived competence of the rural nurses?

2. Among various variables, which one most affected the perceived competence in case of

disaster preparedness?

3. In disaster preparedness, is there any relationship between the self-regulation scores and

perceived competence that is predictive in nature?

Identify the variables.

This research study mainly includes four variables that further affect the engagement of

nurses to the disaster preparedness. The first variable includes individual differences that can

be considered as the age, experience, and any previous disaster experience. The other variable

is self-regulation of behaviour involving intrinsically generated motivation and there

relatedness with the circumstances. Another variable is perceived competence, which is

related with the feeling of person to reach the goal and accomplish the task, and the last

variable is healthcare climate that involves the socio-environmental conditions which provide
 4

satisfaction regarding the relatedness, autonomy, and competence (Deci & Ryan, 2002).

Identify and discuss the appropriateness of the design.

In this research, the descriptive, correlational design was used for determining the nurses’

preparedness for disaster response. In this type of study, the information is collected from the

subject without making any changes and the researcher can’t interact with the subjects and

environment in which the experiment takes place. This design is appropriate for this study as

it uses the surveys for data collection and the researcher was itself not present at that place,

thus could not be able to make any changes to study subjects. Further, such research can’t

make any predictions and simply identifies as well as describes the behaviour of the

participants. It also determines any relationship between two or more variables, which is very

important for the objective of this research study.

Discuss the validity of the research.

This study has the purpose to analyse the factors affecting the disaster preparedness of rural

Texas nurses and supported the fact that, for improving the perceived competence of nurses,

their actual participation in such events is very important. However, as this research taken

place in as a single geographic area, thus, the generalization of results to other hospitals

should be done cautiously. Furthermore, the broad generalization is also risky because of the

specific needs of different regions and hospitals as well as the unpredicted nature of disasters.

Discuss the efficacy of the study. Did it resolve the question?

This study may be proved as important first step regarding the assessment of nurses’

capability of rural areas to react to a disaster. The findings may contribute on a global scale,

so that the new technologies development may further allows for stronger international

collaborations. The study determined that most nurses reported a low to average perception
 5

competence during response and most of the scores were below the midpoint (Garbutt,

Peltier, & Fitzpatrick, 2008)). Thus, the findings indicate that nurses need opportunities for

mock drills, disaster planning, and actual events to increase their competence, confidence,

and familiarity with such events.

Discuss the legal and ethical issues of the study. Include the use of human subjects and

their protection.

The major role of nurses, according to the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of

ethics suggests that, they are committed for the patient. Besides, the fifth provision defined

that the nurses have the same duties for themselves too to preserve their integrity and safety.

Thus, the study should be done by keeping this in mind and during any disaster events,

nurse’s role must be clearly defined along with ethical considerations. In case of disaster

preparedness, nurses must also be proactive in legislation and policies by proper

communication and information regarding their roles in disaster response.

Describe any cultural aspects of the study.

There is no cultural aspect of this study as it is a descriptive analysis of disaster preparedness

that was done on rural nurses’ for their readiness to manage disaster situations.

Describe the sample.

This study was done in 2010 on rural nurses of Texas, when there were nearly 176,000

registered nurses, among which, 9% were working in rural areas. The sample population of

this research was 620 that represent 4% of the available rural nurse. These nurses (N = 620)

responded to a survey link of two major rural healthcare systems and two small rural

hospitals that were located in the Panhandle, north, and central Texas.

Describe the procedures.

 6

EPIQ toll was used for measurement of survey contained a total of 58 question in four sub

category. It includes the civilian nurses that perceived familiarity with different dimensions of

emergency preparedness. Besides, their previous disaster experience (two researchergenerated

questions) was analyzed along with added professional and demographic data such

as their role, specialty area, nursing experience, age, ethnicity, etc. This will define the EPIQ

subscales measurements that reflect the nurse’s self-report familiarity with aspects of

emergency preparedness. However, a 5-point Likert scale was used with two questions to

access the Nurses Assessment of Readiness (NAR) scale. Besides, three questions were included

in the SR survey with respect to nurse engagement in disaster preparedness

activities, it will reflect her likelihood in participating in community disasters. In addition,

Job Satisfaction Questionnaire was used to identify the healthcare climate (Wieck, Dols, &

Northam, 2009), it includes 5- point Likert scale and question with respect to employment.

Summarize the results.

On the basis of compiled data and results, it can be concluded that the almost all the nurses

are not having the ability to respond to disaster and are not confident. Besides, it was also

found that only the nurses who have prior experience in disaster are confident, as motivation

is the significant predictor in disaster management and it depends upon the nurses’

willingness. However, job satisfaction (healthcare climate) cannot be considered as a

determinant of disaster preparedness.

Describe how the results of the research may impact future nursing practice.

These results showed and provide important message that nurses training would be very

important parameter, and that must be ongoing in the carrier along with education of

humaninduced and natural disaster and how to manage these situations. Management will try to
 7

increase the nurse competence in managing disasters, which would be useful to local

response to help unnecessary admission and hospital resources.

Apply the research to the student’s nursing practice.

Since natural and human-induced disasters cannot be predicted and reported to be increased

globally, but it must be managed while taking attention in mitigation and recovery methods.

Planning, mitigation, response, and recovery are the important parameters of disaster that

must be taken care by the nurses. Nurses must take part in the mock drills, disaster events,

and education aspects to prepare for any coming disaster situation. Hospital administration

must encourage the hospital staff with respect to disaster preparedness, education, which will

promote the hospital health care delivery in disaster situation.

 8

References:

Lavin, R. P. (2006). HIPAA and disaster research: Preparing to conduct research.

Disaster Management and Response, 4 (2), 32–36. Fung, W. M., Lai, K. Y., & Loke, A. Y.

(2009). Nurses’ perception of disaster:

Implications for disaster nursing curriculum. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18(22),

3165–3171. Goodhue, C. J., Burke, R. V., Chamber, S., Ferrer, R. R., & Upperman, J. S.

(2010).

Disaster Olympix: A unique nursing emergency preparedness exercise. Journal of

Trauma Nursing, 17(1), 5–10. Coyle, G. A., Sapnas, K. G., & Ward-Presson, K. (2007).

Dealing with disaster.

Nursing Management, 38(7), 24–29. Deci, E. & Ryan, R. (2000). The "What"
 9

and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs

and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268. Garbutt, S.,

Peltier, J., & Fitzpatrick, J. (2008). Evaluation of an Instrument to

Measure Nurses' Familiarity with Emergency Preparedness. Military Medicine,

173(11), 1073-1077. http://dx.doi.org/10.7205/milmed.173.11.1073 Twedell, D. (2009). Duty to

care. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 40(2),

53–54. Wieck, K. L., Dols, J., & Northam, S. (2009). What nurses want: The nurse

incentives

project. Nurse Economic$, 27(3), 169–177, 201.

Comments (3)

y Crunch - History Articles, Summaries, Biographies, Resources and

More. https://www.historycrunch.com/why-was-britain-the-first-country-to-industrialize.html#/