Assessment of Hospital Disaster Preparedness in the City of Birjand, Iran, in 2011

In the past 25 years, natural disasters have taken lives of almost 3 million people and caused about $23 billion of damages worldwide. Iran is one of the 10 most disaster-prone countries in the world, and lack of preparedness of hospitals and healthcare centers burdens the healthcare system with $280 million each year. In this study, the research environment consisted of all hospitals of Birjand (Emam Reza, Valiasr, and Social Security Hospitals) and cases were collected via census method from our research environment. Data were collected by means of a standard checklist consisting of 220 questions in 6 sections of equipment, human resources, physical environment, structure, protocols, and performance chart. The tool was validated through content validity and face validity methods. Moreover, reliability which was estimated by the Kappa test was estimated as good (0.8). SPSS software was used for the analysis of checklist results. Descriptive analysis of data is presented through frequency, frequency percentage, and mean and standard deviation. In general, the level of preparedness in terms of communication with a value of 28.51% was considered as weak. The admission, transfer and discharge, traffic, security, and management training, respectively, with values of 58.26, 43.45, 52.77, 49.07, 44.17, and 56.11% were measured as medium. However, the emergency, support, and staffing with values of 67.36, 66.41, and 60.92% were rated as good. The lowest and highest values were that of the communication and emergency sections, respectively. Altogether, the hospitals’ preparedness, with a value of 52.27%, is at a moderate level.Discussion and Birjand hospitals are in need of improvement in the areas of communication, admission, transfer and discharge, traffic, safety, training, and management, and appropriate decisions need to be made with regard to this issue.