Investigation of knowledge and attitudes of students in Tehran University of Medical Sciences on Health actions in emergencies

Health actions in emergencies are one of the important affairs which can reduce loss and damage of disasters with appropriate running and control of the caused health crisis. This requires knowledge of health, rescue and relief officials, staff, health students and even people about emergency situations.In this descriptive and cross-sectional study, about 263 students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences were selected and studied by multistage sampling. The validity and reliability evaluated by using self administered questionnaire. The questions included in personal information, knowledge and attitudes towards health actions in emergencies. Some tests were used in this study such as Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis. Data was analyzed by SPSS-16. According to the results, %11/2 of students had good knowledge about health actions. About %66/7 of students had average and % 22/1 had poor knowledge about health actions; also about %76/4 of students had an average attitude towards emergency health measures. No significant difference was observed in terms of awareness between women and men. There were significant differences statistically between age group and knowledge in level of α =0/05. It is important to have enough knowledge about health actions in emergencies. It is necessary to hold training courses for some medical students due to their poor knowledge about health actions