Survey of nurses' knowledge, attitude, practice and organizational readiness in dealing with bioterrorism attacks, Baft county, 2020

 Bioterrorism is a global problem and its threat is increasing daily. Nurses have an important role in the management of victims during such incidents. Accordingly, this study was conducted to examine the organizational preparedness of nurses in dealing with bioterrorism attacks.

 The present study was conducted among 90 nurses working in hospital through a cross-sectional census in 2020. A researcher-made questionnaire including five parts: demographics awareness, attitude, performance, and organizational readiness was used. The validity of questionnaire was confirmed by the faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha in four areas of knowledge, attitude, practice and organizational readiness. SPSS software version 21 was used for data analysis. Ethical considerations were observed in all stages of the study.

The results showed that the desired level of bioterrorism awareness among participants was 51.1% (the highest share, related to the field of bioterrorism control, was 56.7%). Most of the respondents (62.2%) had a good and excellent attitude in dealing with bioterrorism attacks (the largest share related to the emotional domain was 67.7%) and finally 94.4% of participants reported good performance. Approximately, 64.4% of nurses are prepared to deal with bioterrorist attacks. There was a statistically significant relationship between surveyed interviewees performance and their education level (p = 0.038).

Findings of our study showed an average level of nurse’s knowledge in dealing with bioterrorist attacks, which requires better and more appropriate planning of health managers to improve their awareness about bioterrorist crises.