It's in the Bag: Personal Emergency Preparedness Training for Student Nurse Practitioners

Background: Recent severe weather events and terrorist activities in the northeastern United States have highlighted the need for citizens to be prepared for sudden evacuation or to face potentially dangerous challenges in place. Evidence suggests that little is known about this content in graduate advanced practice nursing curricula. Methods: Adult Health/Gerontology NP part-time graduate nursing students enrolled at a large northeastern U.S. academic medical center school of nursing were asked to access and apply evidence-based resources to develop a personal emergency kit to use for a sudden evacuation in case of a disaster in their communities. Guidelines included that the kit should be: (1) portable, (2) lightweight, (3) waterproof, and (4) developed with cost information reported. Students were expected to submit a narrative report about how evidence was located and used, the estimated costs of the kit’s contents, and a final digital color photograph of the emergency kit. They were also asked to respond to four open-ended questions about this learning experience.Results: Ninety-six percent of the sample (n = 29) was female with a mean age of 33 years, and mean duration of 9 years of practice as RNs. Mean total cost of the emergency kit was $138.00. Using government and commercial websites, students included essential items in their kits. Photographs illustrating student examples of emergency kits were also submitted. Qualitative content analyses of open-ended questions identified three themes voiced by student participants.Conclusions: Results of this educational experience can be translated into action by community clinicians, as they teach their clients about being prepared to either evacuate during a disaster, or to remain safely in place. The summative kit contents can be used as a template for preparing at home for emergency events. Keywords: emergency preparedness; emergency kits; community care