Experiences of civilian nurses in triage during the Iran-Iraq War: An oral history.

PURPOSE: Nurses played a critical role in performing triage during the Iran-Iraq War. However, their experiences in triage have not been discussed. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the triage experiences of civilian nurses during the Iran-Iraq War. METHODS: Oral history method and in-depth interviews were used to collect data to gain the nurses' experiences in triage. RESULTS: Four themes were extracted from the data, which were the development of triage, challenging environment to perform triage, development of mobile triage teams, and challenges of triage chemical victims for nurses. CONCLUSION: Triage is an important skill for nurses to manage critical situations such as disasters and wars. Nurses have to be competent in performing triage. Involvement in critical situations helps the nurses learn and gain more experience on how to manage unexpected events.

Medical relief for the 2011 Japan earthquake: a nursing account.

In 2011 the east coast of Japan experienced a massive earthquake which triggered a devastating tsunami destroying many towns and killing over 15 000 people. The work presented in this paper is a personal account that outlines the relief efforts of the Humanitarian Medical Assistance team and describes the efforts to provide medical assistance to evacuees. The towns most affected had a large proportion of older people who were more likely to have chronic conditions and required medication to sustain their health. Since personal property was destroyed in the tsunami many older people were left without medication and also did not remember which type of medication they were taking. Some evacuees had brought a list of their medication with them, this assisted relief teams in obtaining the required medication for these people. The more successful evacuation centers had small numbers of evacuees who were given tasks to administer the center that kept them occupied and active.

Nurses' Roles in Nursing Disaster Model: A Systematic Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Nurses have a continuous presence and crucial role in response to disasters. During disasters, nurses apply specific knowledge and skills to minimize victims' health and life-threatening risks. Nurses' roles in crisis are not clearly stated in resources. Thus, this study aimed to explore nurses' role in the nursing disaster model. METHODS: A scoping review was conducted using Joanna Briggs Institute framework. The review considered primary research and reviewed literature from following databases, including Web of Science, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, as well as the reference lists of articles identified for full-text review. Eligibility criteria were outlined as a priori to guide the literature selection. RESULTS: Eight of 60 eligible articles met the inclusion criteria. The studies were conducted in different countries with no limit of time of published articles. The publications' design were three systematic reviews, one meta-synthesis, two qualitative types of research, one quasi-experimental, and one case study. The results showed nurses' roles in the three stages before, during, and after the crisis. CONCLUSION: This review provided a comprehensive understanding of the concept of the nursing role in the crisis, and nurses could be useful to save victims through preparing and implementing effective care at different stages of a crisis.

Existing Approaches to Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Education and Training for Health Professionals: Findings from an Integrative Literature Review.

OBJECTIVES: This review was conducted to explore the literature to determine the availability, content, and evaluation of existing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) education programs for health professionals. METHODS: An integrative review of the international literature describing disaster education for CBRN (2004-2016) was conducted. The following relevant databases were searched: Proquest, Pubmed, Science Direct, Scopus, Journals @ OVID, Google Scholar, Medline, and Ichuschi ver. 5 (Japanese database for health professionals). The search terms used were: "disaster," "chemical," "biological," "radiological," "nuclear," "CBRN," "health professional education," and "method." The following Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms, "education," "nursing," "continuing," "disasters," "disaster planning," and "bioterrorism," were used wherever possible and appropriate. The retrieved articles were narratively analyzed according to availability, content, and method. The content was thematically analyzed to provide an overview of the core content of the training. RESULTS: The literature search identified 619 potentially relevant articles for this study. Duplicates (n=104) were removed and 87 articles were identified for title review. In total, 67 articles were discarded, yielding 20 articles for all-text review, following 11 studies were retained for analysis, including one Japanese study. All articles published in English were from the USA, apart from the two studies located in Japan and Sweden. The most typical content in the selected literature was CBRN theory (n=11), followed by studies based on incident command (n=8), decontamination (n=7), disaster management (n=7), triage (n=7), personal protective equipment (PPE) use (n = 5), and post-training briefing (n=3). CONCLUSION: While the CBRN training course requires the participants to gain specific skills and knowledge, proposed training courses should be effectively constructed to include approaches such as scenario-based simulations, depending on the participants' needs. Kako M , Hammad K , Mitani S , Arbon P . Existing approaches to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) education and training for health professionals: findings from an integrative literature review. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(2):182-190.

An oral history of Japanese nursing: voices of five senior nurses who have experienced nursing since the 1950s.

The history of nursing cannot be considered separately from the history of women. In this study the public history of nursing and women was re-explored via the lived voices of five senior nurses in Japan. An oral history method using in-depth interviewing for data collection was used. Contemporary Japanese women's social position was constantly influenced by government policies from an historically androcentric society. Nursing, as a predominately female occupation, has also struggled with its position in society and in the hospital system. Data were categorised into five themes through the nurses' stories and analysed using feminist liberal theory. Findings from the current study showed that various elements of unequal opportunity to participate in society were an outcome of this history. Nursing in Japan appears to have been socialised without a relationship to feminism. Experiences of the participants in this study indicate a demand for the liberation of nurses as women. These participants wished nurses in Japan to focus on professionalism with an attitude which is independent of past androcentric policies and historical social inequities. With such an autonomous attitude, directions for nursing in Japan become constructive.