Emergency Preparedness Among Health Care Workers in Federal Medical Center Keffi, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

It is essential that all health care workers, regardless of profession or position, understand at least the basic concepts of emergency preparedness because of the wide variety of roles they may be asked to fulfill in an emergency situation. The study was aimed at investigating the emergency preparedness of nurses working in the trauma section at federal medical center keffi, Nasarawa state. A descriptive survey method with questionnaire as the tool for data collection was adopted for the study and purposive sample technique was utilsed to select 150 participant among nurses. Data analysis was achieved using the statistical package of social science version 26.0 and result presented using tables, frequencies and percentages, mean and standard deviations. Major finding shows that the nurses understood the concepts of emergency preparedness with the following findings; level of emergency preparedness 107(71.3%) capacity to effectively manage trauma cases 112(74.7%), and experience of health workers 104(69.3%) respectively and were willing to respond to emergency. The study also identified barriers such as Inadequate /training workshop 75(50.0%), absence of incentives 92(61.3%), (delay in salary 71 (47.3%) disbursement and promotion 56(37.3%)), inadequate working equipment51 (34.0%) and insufficient medical consumables73 (48.7%), as well as inadequate manpower 51(34.0%) among others were factors affecting staff willingness to embrace emergency preparedness. The study suggested that the authority should address and provide adequate and enabling environment (continued education and training programs, disaster-related education centers and educational opportunities on various types of disasters, timely salary payment and motivation to serve as an encouragement for the staff to boast staff moral in the discharge of their duties, and further studies be conducted to cover a wider spectrum.