Survey on emergency medicine workers' attention, notion and attitude against (CBRN) chemical, biologic, radiologic and nuclear accidents

Emergency services, the initial recourse point at all traumatic events that affect the public, will be faced in a CBRN sourced event inevitably new and complicated loads to be added to its existing chaotic structure. In our thesis, evaluating the emergency medicine workers' (emergency physician, emergency medicine resident, paramedic, emergency medicine technician and nurses) prepareadness levels intended for probable CBRN (Chemical, Biologic, Radiologic and Nuclear) threats sourced from accidents, disasters, sabotage and terror events.. In addition to emergency medicine workers' attention, notion and attitude against CBRN threats and accidents, determining physical structures of hospitals and emergency services and present coordinations between emergency service-hospital administration and hospital-relevant institutions (AFAD, Ministry of Health, UMKE etc.) will attribute overcoming the deficiencies in CBRN prepareadness and determining the road map. The survey with 23 questions applied to university, state and private hospitals' emergency medicine workers face to face and electronically. Three questions about demografic informations and twenty questions were concerning CBRN threats awareness, emergency services' present CBRN prepareadness capacity(decontamination, personal protective equipment, education and exercise status, coordinations between intra-organizational b2b and interacademic institutions. 436 emergency medicine workers participated to our study. 42% (n=183) of participants were emergency physician, 17.4 % (n=76 ) ; emergency medicine resident, 8.3 % (n=36) emergency medicine technician, 11.5 % (n=50) paramedic, 20.9 % (n=91) nurses. 46.6 % (n=203) of emergency medicine workers mentioned their request towards enhancing advance in CBRN incidences, 39% (n=170) of them although not yet prioritizing CBRN issues, are sure in importance and delicacy of the matter. Primarily encountered CBRN incidents are 39,9 % (n=174) chemicals and afterwards 12,4 % (n=54) hazardous materials. Emergency medicine workers participated in the survey stated in the rate of 61,8 % (n=268) that have not received any CBRN education toward clinicians. Trainees about 88,3% (n=145) had received a baseline level of theoretical CBRN education. The total of miscognizants about CBRN exercises and nonparticipants were 87,6 %(n=382). Only 12,4 (n=54) participated CBRN exercise hosted by hospital or emergency service. Survey answerers about 13,4 % (n=60) expressed active liaison with hospital coordination authority due to CBRN prepareadness. Those who have not determined task framework for incoming CBRN incidents to emergency department are at the rate of 81% (n= 353) and knowledgelesses about taking the proper procedures in a probable CBRN event correspond to 77,3 % (n=337). Emergency medicine workers' rate about wearing personal protective equipment (availability information and place knowledge) in case of a doubtful CBRN event has been seen as 33,7 % (n=147). Declaratives about presentness and availability of detection and identification equipments in hospital and emergency department for CBRN incidents are at the rate of % 13,5 (n=59). Chiefs of the emergency departments nearly 7,1 % (n=8) declared a fair amount of CBRN service support (allocation of funds, education, education materials, exercise support etc.) to hospital/emergency department by public enterprises (AFAD, CoHE, Ministry of Health). In terms of CBRN Incident Command System, 17,2 % (n=20) rate of emergency departments chiefs mentioned that hospital has a determined role in province-wide and a present protocol with the public enterprises liable for CBRN service support. CBRN accidents and events are serious threats to be prepared. Emergency medicine workers, assured conscious of the importance of CBRN prepareadness, have to be supported with education and exercises, CBRN coordination between intra-organizational and interacademic institutions must be improved. Keywords: Emergency service, Emergency medicine workers, hospital, accidents, CBRN threats.