assessing the preparedness rate againest earthquake risk in hospitals affiliated to urmia university of medical sciences 2011

assessing the preparedness rate againest earthquake risk in hospitals affiliated to urmia university of medical sciences 2011     hekmatkhah a [1] , rahimi h [2] , kamali aghdam m [3] , taghavi shahri sm [4] , sadeghifar j [5] , hamouzadeh p [6] *     received: 22 nov, 2011 accepted: 15 jan, 2012     abstract   background & aims : the necessity for providing appropriate services in hospitals during an earthquake is imperative that is needful comprehensive preparedness of hospitals. this study was performed to assess the preparedness of hospitals affiliated to the urmia university of medical sciences against earthquake risk in 2011.   materials & methods : this cross-sectional study was performed in all hospitals affiliated to urmia university of medical sciences that located in province centers. data were collected using checklist and the interview and observation existing documents. the data was analyzed by spss 19 and using fisher's exact and spearman correlation coefficient tests.   result : from 8 surveyed themes, the highest level of preparedness against earthquake risk was in management disaster plan and the least level of preparedness was in the planning efforts in the field of environmental health. results showed that six hospitals were located in very poor level, three hospitals in poor level and one hospital in the middle level of preparedness against earthquakes risk. overall average mean of hospital preparedness against earthquakes was 20.07 percent. based upon spearman correlation coefficient test, a statistically significant relationship was seen within the area of the planning essential equipment and supplies and planning to support vital services (r=0.824, p=0.003).   conclusion: based upon the results, the overall level of preparedness rate of hospitals against earthquake risk was assessed in the poor level. it is recommended while developing short term educational programs in crisis management and continuing that implement, where possible retrofitting non-structural hospitals to be considered as a priority.   keywords: preparedness, disaster, earthquake, hospital     address: department of health management and economics, school of public health, tehran university of medical sciences, poursina ave, enghelab square, tehran, iran. tel : (+98) 9144469161 email: [email protected]   [1] vice-chancellor for health, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran  [2] vice-chancellor for logistic, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran  [3] chief of motahari hospital, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran  [4] msc student, department of epidemiology and biostatistics, school of public health, tehran university of medical sciences, tehran, iran  [5] phd student, department of health service management, school of management and medical information, tehran university of medical sciences, tehran, iran  [6] phd student, department of health management and economics, school of public health, tehran university of medical sciences, tehran, iran (corresponding author)