The roles of community health nurses for health service in disaster situation

Abstract

Thailand tends to experience more and more severe disasters, widely affecting people, family, community and country. The purpose of this study was to study the roles of community nurses in providing health services in disaster situations. Critical ethnography methods including: observations, in-depth interviews, document study, and focus-group discussion were employed to collect data. The data were analyzed by content analysis. There were 127 informants who were purposively selected, including 1) the officers of administrative organizations, 2) the officers of local organizations, 3) the health service personnel in the area, 4) the people sector, and 5) the elderly and their family caregivers. The results showed that community nurses played a role in providing health services in disaster situations in 3 phases: 1) the roles in disaster prevention and preparedness phase, 2) the roles in rescue phrase, and 3) the role in post-disaster recovery period. The recommendations from this research results are as follows: 1) Community health nurses should prioritize preparedness in the pre-disaster stage; and plan for health services covering all three phases. 2) They should also prepare data and use them to prepare disaster management plans. 3) They should drive social capital and related agencies to participate in health services. 4) The potential of community nurses should be improved so that they can be disaster managers at the sub-district level.