Knowledge levels of health professional working in Ethiopia toward disaster preparedness, systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Back ground A disaster is defined by the World Health Organization as a sudden ecological phenomenon of sufficient magnitude to necessitate outside help. Health institutions play an important part in the healthcare system during a disaster by providing critical medical care to their communities. It is critical that health professionals are prepared for catastrophes in order to protect themselves and the community. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, we systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed articles from PubMed, Google Scholar and other electronics database that investigated levels of health professional knowledge toward disaster preparedness. To assess the pooled national health professional knowledge level, a weighted inverse variance random-effects model was used. For the analysis, a total of 7 studies with a total of 1579 participants were used. In Ethiopia, the pooled good knowledge levels of health professional toward disaster preparedness was 48.58% (95% CI: 43.43, 53.73), implying that 48.58% of health professionals had good knowledge towards disaster preparedness. Based on the included studies positive predictive factors associated with health professional good knowledge of disaster preparedness include being a nursing professional, past experience in big disaster management, disaster training, and disaster simulation practice. In conclusion, only 48.58% of health professionals had good understanding of disaster preparedness, while the remaining 51.42% lacked disaster preparedness knowledge. The government, educational institutions, and non-governmental organizations should place a special emphasis on preparing health professionals for disaster management by providing training, sharing experience, and incorporating disaster management training into health professional curricula in their higher education programs.