Journal of Rescue and Relief
Year:2014 | Volume:5 | Issue:4|Papers Count:12

Background: Red Crescent society of Tehran province held some short-term on the job training courses for all employees in order to achieve effective and efficient human resources and to improve their performance. However, this paper aims to evaluate the effect of these training courses in the efficiency of personnel from 2007 to 2009.Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, data were collected by using the self-administration questionnaire. About 119 cases were selected through stratified sampling and eventually 112 persons were responded to the questionnaire.Findings: The results showed that effectiveness of “efficacy of short-term on the job training courses was less than average in view of staff. About 5.1% of the changes concerning the dependent variable (efficiency of employees) were covered by the independent variable of on the job training courses. The obtained beta level was 0.226 in a simple linear regression for the independent variable.Conclusion: according to the results, some items should be considered on organizations such as job analysis, evaluation of staff performance on the job, and conducting various tests.

Background: Iran is one of the top ten natural disaster-prone countries that cause major financial and human losses annually. The extent of destruction caused by natural disasters especially earthquakes, flood etc covers vast areas of the country. On the other hand, most of disasters are unexpected ones and even if they are gradual, they do not give man enough time to deal with. Tehran is of crucial importance as the capital of Iran due to the highly concentrated population as well as its economic and political decision-makers organizations and institutions, however, an earthquake will result in a national catastrophe. Considering the tremendous extent of the crisis caused by an earthquake in this city, the crisis managing organizations should have the proper potentiality to control the situation and the presence of military units in order to control and reduce damages and the relieve the pain of affected people. However, in this research, preparedness of two military units of the Armed Forces (Mohammad Rasul Allah division 27th and Seyed al Shohada 10th division) was compared based on seven indicators such as trained manpower against natural disasters; storage system to manage the rescue & relief support; specialized equipment of rescue & relief operational teams; timely allocation of budgets for disaster preparation; proper organization to conduct rescue & relief operations; the current information systems; and effectiveness of the emergency operations.Methods: In this descriptive survey, 100 persons were selected and studied by using questionnaire and simple random sampling; also, data were analyzed by single-sample t and independent-sample t tests.Findings: according to the findings, preparedness of military units is proper and desirable. In all the studied factors, the preparedness of Seyed al Shohada 10th Division was higher than Mohammad Rasul Allah Division 27th.Conclusion: The results show that the military forces are prepared to react appropriately during and after a probable earthquake in Tehran city.

Background: Sphere project is the operational framework for the relief activities of humanitarian organizations during rapid response phase. It has been designed and determined based on humanitarian charter and minimum standards in disaster relief. However, this research has been done based on analysis of content and structural changes of Sphere (2004 and 2011 editions) and was compared with the common standards chapter.Methods: This systematic review has been done from 1990 to 2013. The search results were 370 articles and scientific texts; about 10 papers were selected as the related studies regarding to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Moreover, some articles extracted from evaluating references papers based on objectives of study. This study was conducted over two months by authors.Findings: The main reasons are included protection and safety principles for affected people, the necessity of development of humanitarian activities to improve and to modify the provisions of the humanitarian actions rules in recent years. Some issues are not included or pointed them out briefly such as justice, disaster prevention, environmental health issues and urban warfare. The change of “Minimum Standards common to all chapters” to “people and processes standards” and the structural change as well as content revision from eight common standards to six core standards have a major importance in new edition. Conclusion: According to the obtained results, the purpose of Sphere new edition is to update the qualitative and quantitative indicators and guidance notes not to change the qualitative standards or fundamental change. In the new revision, general structure and integrity of text have improved. “Minimum standards” chapter has been structured as “core standards”. In delivery of disaster response services, particular attention must be paid to provide security as an important parameter in relief in addition to meet minimum basic needs.

Background: Triage is the process of prioritizing patients based on their medical needs; and the triage nurse is essential for this process. Most developed countries use different systems for triage in emergency department. This research aims to study the triage situation in hospital emergency departments of Tabriz city.Methods: In this descriptive study, 176 emergency doctors and nurses from emergency departments were studied in Tabriz. Data was gathered and analyzed by using standard questionnaire and SPSS-14 software.Findings: The results illustrated, the triage of emergency departments is organized, focusing on personnel who perform triage as well as the facilities, resources and triage procedures. However, the results indicated that the essentials of triage in Tabriz emergency department are not integrated. About 68.8% of respondents declared that there are not specialized nurses for emergency department. About 72% of respondents stated that there is not triage station in emergency department. About 65% of respondents declared that patients are triaged in the emergency department hall.Conclusion: Due to the lack of standardized and organized triage system in terms of allocation of human resources and prioritize patients, further research on triage in emergency departments, particularly in the areas of health personnel and more attention of health authorities for the implementation of standardized triage system is emphasized.

Background: The results of the latest research on relief workers have shown that they did not have good mental health than others just because they exposed to stressful job situations. However, researchers always emphasized sport activities as an effective strategy for improving mental health. Therefore, this study aims to compare mental health status of male and female relief workers of Red Crescent society and to determine the importance of exercise in mental health for these groups.Methods: In this descriptive and causal-comparative study, four groups were selected and studied (25 patients for each group) by using available sampling such as: 1) trained male relief workers; 2) trained female relief workers; 3) untrained male relief workers; and 4) untrained female relief workers. All groups filled the self-administrated questionnaire of individual information and SCL-90 psychological disorder questionnaire. Data analyzed by a one-way ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc tests.Findings: The results showed that a relatively high percentage of relief workers (31%) had a mental disorders score above the cut-off points. In addition, trained and untrained men had higher average mental health than their opposite-gender counterpart. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Finally, reporting the results of the one-way ANOVA results, mental health of trained women and men is significantly more than their untrained peers.Conclusion: According to the results, it is suggested that the officials of relative organizations should consider sport programs and competitions due to its positive effects on relief workers’ mental health as a useful and easy solution in order to reduce harmful effects of job stress.

Background: Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation is the critical skill needed by emergency medical personnel; so they must be aware of the recent changes in CPR. This study has been done to determine the awareness level of emergency medical technicians in Kermanshah of the 2010 guidelines for CPR in 2012.Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, emergency medical technicians (159 ones) were studied using census sampling in Kermanshah’s emergency base in 2012. By using a self-administrated questionnaire, data were collected with face, content and reliability (r=%74); also were analyzed by STATA-11 software, tests of Kruskal-Wallis, Mann–Whitney U and Spearman (P<0.05).Findings: According to the findings, the level of awareness in emergency medical personnel was as follows: %19.5 excellent, %78.6 good and %1.9 moderate. Also, there was no statistically significant relationship between level of awareness and gender, work experience, field of study, previous workplace, passing advanced CPR training and observing CPR. However, level of awareness was higher in emergency technicians who had experience of passing and performing CPR training independent. In some areas, level of awareness was influenced by workplace and observing CPR (P<0.001).Conclusion: It is recommended to teach CPR based on the 2010 guidelines for emergency technicians with the emphasis on Laryngeal Mask Airway (LMA), combi tube intubations, reasons of termination and undoing of CPR, intraosseous injections (IO) and induced-hypothermia.

Today, health care and medical preparedness against biological threats are important. In the event of a biological incident scene, emergency medical personnel among the other employee's health care system will aid due to the inherent nature of its activities.This study accomplished aimed to assess the readiness of emergency medicine personnel against biological incidents, with 121 samples selected from Tehran EMS personnel in 2012.According to the results, the average age of respondents is 34 years, most of them were associate degree, and average personnel experience 8.6 years. About 60.4% of staff had not received any theoretical education against biological contamination conditions. About 68.9% of staff had not received any practical training to deal with biological threats. About the necessary equipment for dealing with biological events, 48.5% of the participants declared there is no equipment in ambulance. About the operating procedures to deal with biological incidents, 51% of the staff declared they have no sufficient instructions. Finally, personnel preparedness against biological events was estimated at about 28%.

Background: Fire is one of the important issues that influence on all three categories of safety, health and environment. The use of appropriate methods of fire risk assessment by identifying risks and applying appropriate technical and management measures to control or minimize the probability of disasters and mitigation can reduce significantly the damages caused by fire. Therefore, the main objectives of this research are review and compare the fire risk assessment models to determine using terms of models.Methods: In order to achieve the main objective, initially existing fire risk assessment models were reviewed. Then by using descriptive-analytical method, the fire risk assessment models and their application were discussed. These models are described in this research such as CESARE-Risk model in Australia, FIRECAM and FIERA System in Canada, CRISP model in the UK and QRA that has been developed at Lund University in Sweden.Findings: According to this study, in models based on cost-risk assessment methods such as CESARE-Risk, FIRECAM, and FIERA, certain conservative assumptions and approximations have been made due to the complexity and the lack of sufficient understanding of fire phenomena and human behavior. As a result, these models should not be used for absolute assessments for fire risks and losses while they are considered to be reliable for comparative assessments and selection of a cost-effective fire safety system. However, the CRISP model scope has been limited to two story residential occupancies, and has been used to evaluate such tradeoffs as fire detection installation versus the need for additional passive fire protection, and caution has been urged relative to the model’s use in more complex buildings. Finally, there are some a number of challenges and limitations to using of LUND QRA method including difficulties in developing appropriate analytical expressions and uncertainty factors.Conclusion: In this research, fire risk assessment models are studied. On this basis, the models developed for specific occupancies are only applicable to those buildings and cannot be easily extended to other ones. This is mainly due to the implicit assumptions and simplifications by computer. Another important issue related to the acceptance of the fire risk assessment methods for fire safety. Some of the reasons included such as lack of full credit and lack of knowledge and technology for education in these models for designers and code officials as well as the lack of proper validation of the models.