Disaster management: a study on knowledge, attitude and practice of community health nurse

Background: Nurses accounted to a greater number of healthcare providers. Therefore, it is crucial for nurses, predominantly community health nurse to be prepared in facing disaster as the catastrophic event occurs without warning. Being prepared will reduce nurses’ fright and anxiety, and simultaneously lessen the impact of disaster towards community. The purpose of this study is to determine knowledge, attitude and practice of community health nurse towards disaster management. Method: This cross-sectional study conducted in one of states in Malaysia. The questionnaire distributed to randomly select 312 registered nurses who work in health clinics from October to November 2011. Results: The response rate of community health nurse is 84.6 per cent (n=264). It shows about 40.9 per cent (n=108) of nurses are having adequate knowledge on disaster, 83.3 per cent (n=220) portray a positive attitude and merely 30.7 per cent (n=81) having an adequate practice. It has been identified an association between attending disaster-related education/training with nurses’ knowledge (p<0.001, χ2=24.000), attitude (p<0.05, χ2=4.177) and practice (p<0.001, χ2=25.558). Nurses who attended disaster-related education/training are more likely to have an adequate knowledge (p<0.001, AOR=3.511, 95% CI=2.097-5.881), portraying positive attitude (p<0.05, AOR=2.042, 95% CI=1.025-4.069) and having an adequate practice (p