Back groundA 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.Method: 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.
Result: For the analysis, Spoons 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 Party Games in big disaster management, disaster training, and disaster simulation practice.Conclusion: 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.