Assessment of physician's knowledge about disaster

ABSTRACT

Physicians have an important role addressing the disasters and most of the times they are the first to attend triage scene and emergency departments. Since Iran is one of the countries in which natural disasters are common self reliance and confidence in disaster management are of special importance. In this descriptive cross-sectional study 100 General physicians and 100 residents working in hospitals in some specialized fields related to Emergency conditions were enrolled randomly. They completed checklists about their disaster management knowledge and confidence building level. Data were analyzed via SPSS11. Knowledge of General physicians and residents was as follows, about disaster [29%], scene triage [21%] hospital disaster teams [12%] and tasks [11%] the enrolled physicians didn't show sufficinet abilities in addressing the disasters and their activities were limited to; study [27%], participation in seminars and congresses [4%], and confidence abilities [6%] in disaster conditions. The majority of them [88%] knew that basic and advanced disaster educational courses are necessary for physicians. Disaster training for physicians in under and postgraduate levels are not enough. Therefore considering the low knowledge and abilities of physicians in Iran it's seems that holding advanced disaster courses should be included in physicians training programs