Nurses as A Crucial Part in Disaster Response: A Systematic Review
Abstract
Background: Disasters have complex and unavoidable impacts that influence socioeconomic, infrastructure, and health aspects. Nurses have to understand their roles and competencies in disaster response.
Purpose: This systematic review explored nurses' experiences, roles, and competencies in the disaster response phase.
Methods: PubMed, SAGE Journal, and Scopus were the primary databases utilized for literature searching, using keywords 'nurses,' 'disaster nursing,' 'experience,' 'nursing roles,' 'nursing competencies', 'nursing care,' 'disaster,' and 'disaster response.'
Results: As many as 11 articles were included in the final review following the eligibility criteria. Review results from this study as follows: 1) 8 of 11 (72 %) articles discuss the experiences of nurses in the disaster phase which include motivation as responders, problems and dilemmas in caring, coping with stressors, perceived impacts, and gaining resilience, 2) 6 out of 11 ( 54.5 %) articles discuss the role of nurses in the disaster response which included holistic care (80%) and deal with role conflict (20%), and 3 ) 5 of 11 (45%) articles discuss nurse competencies in the disaster phase which include clinical and ethical competencies, interprofessional and managerial competencies, and disaster nurses' competencies in general.
Conclusion: This systematic review gives evidence that disaster response has its complexity. Hence, training, simulation, and socialization are recommended to optimize nurses' roles and competencies during disaster response.
