Nursing Intervention in Disaster The possibility of occurrence of disasters is a reality. With this in mind there should be efforts made to prevent any upcoming or potentially disastrous events. These efforts are what are known as disaster prevention. Disaster prevention therefore refers to efforts put in place to ensure that adverse effects of events that are potentially disastrous are prevented even when the disaster cannot be controlled. Disaster prevention is done at various levels of the society and is undertaken so as to prevent all types of disasters. Nurses are involved to a large extent when it comes to the prevention and mitigation of disasters. Nurses are involved in institutions that can influence change and due to the unique skills that they posses they can make interventions in disasters. To perform efficiently, a nurse must be always prepared to make changes in plan actions at any time and at the same time adopt to new situations. Nurses are expected to be health educators, administrators, care providers and intervene in crises .There are various nursing interventions that are related to disasters, these can be in three levels; primary intervention, secondary intervention and tertiary intervention.

Primary intervention

Prevention includes identifying hazards, assessing threats to life and property and taking measures that help in disaster mitigation. Nurses are better placed when it comes to educating the public, they should therefore teach people on how to find out what can happen to them .This can be done through helping them get information on the disaster types that are likely to occur and how they can prepare for each. They should also be informed on community warning systems; what they should sound like and how they should respond to them when they hear them. Nurses should ensure that there is a disaster plan which is comprehensive (Harden, 2004 ).The aim of the plan should be providing prompt and effective medical care to as many people as possible so as to minimize mortality and morbidity. They should teach people to discuss with family members on the need for preparing for disasters and why...

They can differ depending on type and scope of disasters. The aim of secondary interventions is decreasing effects of disasters on individuals and the community in general. Some nursing interventions in secondary intervention involve the giving of first aid to the injured at the sites of disaster. They should ensure that they pass a message to nearby hospitals on the disaster that has occurred so as to prepare them for casualties that will be taken there. They ensure that the casualties get immediate basic care before they get to the hospital. They also ensure that the casualties are taken to the hospital as soon as possible so that they can get further treatment. There are also people that are not physically injured from the disaster and they should also be taken care of by the nurses (Rittenmeyer, 2007).
Their provision of psychological support requires that they identify the group of people that needs the intervention immediately. The people who are considered to be at a high risk and need immediate intervention are those who are related to the primary victims, those that were there at the actual site of the disaster but were not hurt physically and first respondents. They can hold talks with the people on how to deal with emotions such as sadness, anger, fear and irritability. This will help them deal with trauma from the disaster.

Tertiary intervention

Tertiary prevention strategies are those that are meant for the meeting of long-term needs of people after resolving the disaster. Nurses have a role to play when it comes to tertiary interventions; these include implementations of programs that foster the healing process after a disaster. The nurses will therefore be in charge of programs that educate people on stress responses and when and how they should seek help (Rittenmeyer, 2007).

The interventions that are chosen fall under the three phases of disaster prevention. This is because all these are important…