Author
Listed:
- Huahua Yin
- Haiyan He
- Paul Arbon
- Jingci Zhu
- Jing Tan
- Limei Zhang
Abstract
Aims and objectives. To explore: the selection criteria for first responder nurses during disaster; scope of practice for disaster relief nurses; appropriate nurse – medical practitioner ratio at the disaster site. Background. Nurses are key members of disaster response medical teams. A scarcity of literature exists relating to nurses attending disasters, their qualifications, experience, scope of practice and appropriate staffing ratios. Design. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected via survey using self‐developed questionnaires. Participants were 95 medical workers, who participated in emergency rescue teams following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China. A response rate of 93·7% achieved. Method. The questionnaire included questions relating to nurses: previous experience in disaster relief; scope of practice at the disaster site; optimal ratio of medical practitioners to nurses in disaster relief teams. Results. Following a disaster, first responder nurses considered most suitable were those with at least three years clinical experience, particularly in the emergency department or having emergency rescue skills training. The scope of practice for disaster relief nurses was different to that of nurses working in a hospital. The majority of participants reported insufficient nurses during the relief effort, concluding the optimal ratio of medical practitioner to nurse should range between 1:1–1:2 depending on the task and situation. Conclusion. At the scene of disaster, the preferred first responder nurses were nurses: with emergency rescue training; experienced in the emergency department; with at least three years clinical experience. The scope of practice for first responder nurses needs to be extended. Appropriate nurse – medical practitioner ratios in responding medical teams is dependant on the specific medical requirements of the disaster. Relevance to clinical practice. The recommendations made by this study provide a guide to ensure that nurses can contribute effectively as essential members of first responder emergency disaster relief teams.
Suggested Citation
Huahua Yin & Haiyan He & Paul Arbon & Jingci Zhu & Jing Tan & Limei Zhang, 2012.
"Optimal qualifications, staffing and scope of practice for first responder nurses in disaster,"
Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(1‐2), pages 264-271, January.
Handle:
RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:21:y:2012:i:1-2:p:264-271
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2011.03790.x
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:21:y:2012:i:1-2:p:264-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2702 .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.