Nurses’ knowledge, attitude and practice towards mass causality preparedness at one referral hospital in Rwanda

Abstract

Background: The numbers of disasters are increasing day by day all over the world. Nurses are the fundamental element in preparedness, they have to know and understand well all information related to mass casualty preparedness. Developing countries including Rwanda are at high risks due to many factors like population growth, climate change, terrorism, technology, road traffic accident, floods periods, earthquake, terrorists‟ acts, refugee holding etc.., these cause loss of life and other life threading. Regardless of these, there are no available documents in Rwanda on how nurses are prepared to receive and manage mass casualties. Purpose and significance of the study: assess nurses‟ knowledge, attitude and practice regarding mass casualty preparedness in RMH. The research findings from this study have impact to nurses‟ preparedness, education and to further research. Methodology: Quantitative cross sectional descriptive method used, 90 nurses selected by using total population sampling strategy from A&E, ICU and OT. Pilot conducted among 10 nurses, data were analyzed by using SPSS and presented in the form of figures and tables. Results: Findings show that 38.2% working in theater, 52.6% of nurses, their working experience were between 1-5 years, most of them didn‟t know the correct definition of disaster and other elements related to disaster plan, which demonstrate their inadequacy knowledge (61.8%), the level of attitude was negative (53%) and their practice was poor (78%). Conclusion: Nurses‟ attitude was negative, they have inadequate knowledge and poor practice in terms of ongoing training and simulations related to mass casualty preparedness.