Investigation of competencies of nurses in disaster response by utilizing objective structured clinical examination

BACKGROUND Nurses are members of the health care team for crisis response. Identifying nurses' capability in responding to a disaster and promoting their preparedness will lead to effective use of human resources and decreasing the detrimental effects of disaster. The purpose of this article was to determine emergency nurses' competences in triage, life support, and basic clinical skills in disaster response. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study was a descriptive study in which 40 emergency nurses were recruited by purposeful sampling. Moreover, their competencies in performing triage, life support, and basic clinical skills were evaluated by utilizing eight-station objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). RESULTS Our findings showed that the mean scores of nurses' performance were: In triage (4.3 ± 1.27), life support (4 ± 1.5), airway management (5.3 ± 1.7), chest tube insertion (7.3 ± 1.8), nasogastric tube insertion (5.6 ± 2.5), IV therapy (2.5 ± 0.8), IV line insertion (6 ± 1.4), suturing (9.1 ± 1.6), and urinary catheterization (10.4 ± 2.2). No statistically significant correlation was found between demographic variables and nurses' performance (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION According to our findings, it can be concluded that competencies of nurses in performing triage, life support, and basic clinical skills were undesirable. Because emergency nurses are members of the emergency medical team, they should be prepared for disaster response via continuous training programs.