Nursing interventions across three levels of disaster prevention

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 it is necessary to work as a team (Rittenmeyer, 2007).

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 phases of a disaster. Therefore the interventions should involve all the three phases because one phase leads to another.

The most favorable people or agencies I would work in facilitating the above proposed interventions are the state agencies and local governments; I chose on these agencies because they might be the same people being affected disaster but still fail to create awareness to the community, individuals and health care providers. Whenever there are disasters, these groups of people should be the first in quickly responding to the emergency whether it occurred naturally or not. The state agency and the local government should help in preparing and maintaining the current state emergency operations by providing for the prevention and minimizing the injuries that might have been caused by the disaster. The state agencies and local governments will help in educating the community or the public on the signs of disaster and how to be prepared when the disaster is occurring. This will help in creating awareness to the whole community to get prepared whenever a disaster strikes them and ways they can approach that tragedy. In this case, preparedness mainly focuses on preparation of the equipments and procedures to be used when a disaster occurs, for example planning and other equipments that can be used by health care providers in carrying out first aid.

Facilitation of the proposed intervention will require a well developed disaster plan by the state agencies since disasters are unpredictable and the responses that might be needed will require the local governments and the state agencies to stretch to the limit (Wolters Kluwer Health, 2007). Therefore, the disaster plan will majorly aim in reducing the occurrence of the disasters as well as reducing the impact of those other tragedies that cannot be prevented. It will also help in creating awareness to the community to be ready for anything that might happen which might cause destruction to their properties.

Spiritual Issues surrounding disasters

People have been reacting differently to the issue of disaster, even in their spiritual lives. Disaster whether manmade or natural can affect the entire communities, health care providers and individuals that existed prior to the event. When disaster occurs, some people will be overwhelmed, and can cause traumatic stress among them. However others would be affected in their spiritual lives while some may be energized reporting that they feel more alive and well connected to the divine during and immediately after a disaster than ever before. There are various spiritual issues that can arise for individuals, communities, and health care providers when strike by disasters. For instance, the issues of wounding of the spirits, the wounding of the spirits can results when people are apt to make sense out of tragic events appearing to be senseless and unjust. Spirituality and religious faith normally assures the victims of disasters with a sense of order and security, but if the spiritual belief is lost entirely, then this will result to disillusionment, anger and anxiety.

Natural and manmade disaster losses in most cases happen to bring to the forefront the nature of the relationship of people to their spiritual beliefs. The experience may challenge them to start viewing something like prayers to be the only thing that could solve their problems. A community health nurse can assist in the spiritual care for the individuals, communities and colleagues by providing some assurance of divine protections. The community health nurse can also assist in congregating, sharing prayers and comforting the beliefs of people that their request for divine assistance will be answered and therefore, it is important for all people to come together for support when strike by disasters in the community.