Hospital Preparedness of Semnan Province to Deal with Disasters

Introduction: Hospitals are major health service places which deal with disasters and whose preparedness and offering on time services play vital role in reduction of injuries and death. This research was conducted to determine preparedness of hospitals in Semnan province to deal with disasters (2010). Methods: In this practical, cross-sectional study, all head managers of hospitals in Semnan Province were selected through the census method, and a questionnaire comprising 40 questions and a checklist include of 133 questions were completed through observation and interview. The collected data were analyzed using ANOVA. Results: Out of the 10 studied hospitals, 50% were teaching hospitals and the rest were therapeutic. Average preparedness of programming support for vital services was 80%, for natural disasters management programs in hospital was 65%, for programming for environmental health activities against disasters was 56.2%, for security of equipments and hazardous material was 64.2%, for programming for reduction in structural dangers was 43.8%, for evacuation and field treatment was 49.5%, and average score for hospital educational planning to deal with disasters was 42.2%. ANOVA test has shown significant relationship between manager’s awareness and hospital preparedness, (P=0.001). Hence province hospitals with 58.4±15.7% average, attain medium level against disasters. Conclusion: Results indicate that managers require to be trained in confronting disasters and it is essential to retrain managers in all the fields including environmental health activities against disasters reduction in structural dangers and programming for evacuation and field treatment for confronting disasters.