Abstract
Background
The growing frequency of disasters increases health system demands, increasing the
need for emergency departments to provide public health messaging to prevent illness
and reduce risk. This study aims to explore emergency nurse practice and attitudes
in providing public health messages from the emergency department during disasters
in Australia.
Methods
Quantitative phase of a mixed methods study, using an explanatory sequential design.
Australian emergency nurses were surveyed using a validated online questionnaire.
Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, an enumerative content
analysis, participant profiling and a factor analysis.
Results
Disaster experience varied in 143 nurse participants. The perception of the emergency
nurse’s role in providing public health messages is influencing practice. Embracing
teachable moments and health promotion responsibilities, attributes to positive attitudes
and practice. In contrast, negative attitudes, lack of confidence, time, policy, and
training, are barriers to public health messages being provided in the emergency setting.
Conclusions
These barriers suggest that Australian emergency nurses may not have the capability,
the opportunity, nor the motivation, to provide preventative messages to their patients
during disasters. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors need to be addressed, ensuring nurses
are confident and supported in their public health messaging practice during disasters.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Australasian Emergency CareAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Clinical and ethical challenges for emergency departments during communicable disease outbreaks: can lessons from Ebola virus disease be applied to the COVID‐19 pandemic?.Emerg Med Australas. 2020; 32: 520-524
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on South Australia’s emergency departments: evidence from two lockdowns.Aust Health Rev. 2021; 45: 533-539
- Emergency departments and the COVID-19 pandemic: making the most of limited resources.Emerg Med J. 2020; 37: 258-259
- Compound natural disasters in Australia: a historical analysis.Environ Hazards. 2022; 21: 159-173
- Epidemic thunderstorm asthma: lessons learned from the storm down-under.J Allergy Clin Immunol: Pract. 2021; 9: 1510-1515
- Professional and psychological perceptions of emergency nurses during the COVID‐19 pandemic: a qualitative study.Jpn J Nurs Sci. 2021; e12470
Australasian College of Emergency Medicine. Emergency departmet disaster preparedness and response Policy P33. Melbourne: ACEM; 2020.
- Public health messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: Lessons from communication science.Health Commun. 2022; 37: 1-19
- Public health messaging during extreme smoke events: are we hitting the mark?.Front Public Health. 2020; 8: 465
- Public health messages: why are they ineffective and what can be done?.Curr Obes Rep. 2012; 1: 50-58
- Dear pandemic: nurses as key partners in fighting the COVID‐19 infodemic.Public Health Nurs. 2021; 38: 603-609
NMBA, 2018. Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia: Standards of Practice 2018 [Available from: 〈https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards/registered-nurse-standards-for-practice.aspx〉.
College of Emergency Nursing Australasia, 2020. Practice Standards for the Specialist Emergency Nurse 4th Edition. Domain 2: Communication. Victoria: CENA; 2020.
- The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions.Implement Sci. 2011; 6: 1-12
- COVID-19: a tale of two pandemics across the Asia Pacific region.Paediatr Respir Rev. 2020; 35: 75-80
Coombs N M, Porter J E, Barbagallo M, Plummer V , 2021.Public health education by emergency nurses: A scoping review and narrative synthesis. Patient Education and Counseling. 2021.
QualtricsXM. Qualtrics Provo , Utah, U.S.A. 2020 [Available from: 〈https://www.qualtrics.com〉.
- The content validity index: are you sure you know what's being reported? Critique and recommendations.Res Nurs Health. 2006; 29: 489-497
- SPSS survival manual: a step by step guide to data analysis using IBM SPSS.Routledge, 2020
IBM Corp. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 25. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp[Google Scholar]. 2017.
- Qualitative data analysis and interpretation: systematic search for meaning.Address Res Chall: Mak Headw Dev Res. 2015; 131: 156
- Factor analysis as a tool for survey analysis.Am J Appl Math Stat. 2021; 9: 4-11
- Issues and recommendations for exploratory factor analysis and principal component analysis.Res Soc Adm Pharm. 2021; 17: 1004-1011
- A prospective study exploring the construct and predictive validity of the COM-B model for physical activity.J Health Psychol. 2019; 24: 1378-1391
- Do patients understand discharge instructions?.J Emerg Nurs. 2011; 37: 138-140
- Examining patient comprehension of emergency department discharge instructions: Who says they understand when they do not?.Intern Emerg Med. 2015; 10: 993-1002
- ED-HOME: improving educator confidence and patient education in the emergency department.Austral Emerg Nurs J. 2016; 19: 133-137
- The attitudes and activities of registered nurses towards health promotion and patient education in the emergency department.Outlook. 2009; : 15-19
- Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.Psychol Rev. 1977; 84: 191
- A brief introduction to the COM-B Model of behaviour and the PRIME Theory of motivation [v1].Qeios. 2020;
- Capability, opportunity, and motivation: an across contexts empirical examination of the COM-B model.BMC Public Health. 2021; 21: 1-17
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 21, 2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2022 College of Emergency Nursing Australasia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
