Determination of disaster preparedness status of hospitals

Disasters have become one of the important issues seen around the world, causing great losses to the living society and the environment. Since the beginning of humanity, as disasters have negatively affected people, individuals and societies in response have made many attempts to reduce the negative consequences and exposures due to disasters. Today, hospitals have developed emergency and disaster plans to be prepared for disasters and combat their damaging effects. This study aims to determine the disaster preparedness of hospitals in our country by using the guideline prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO). Another aim of the study is to determine whether the preparedness of hospitals for disasters differs according to the characteristics of the hospital such as ownership, role, bed capacity, etc. Hospitals affiliated with the Ministry of Health (MoH) constitute the universe of the study and 210 hospitals were selected as a sample. As a result of the study, it has been determined that the mean score of the hospitals was 156.83 ± 21.43, the highest mean score was obtained from command and control (12.93 ± 1.37), and the lowest mean score was obtained from human resources (22.48 ± 4.80) sub-dimensions. When evaluated according to the characteristics of the hospitals, it was determined that there was a significant difference only between the total scores of disaster preparedness in line with the number of daily patients per nurse, and there was a significant difference between some sub-dimensions according to the other characteristics of the hospitals.