Disaster nursing and the challenges that nurses encounter within it

Abstract
Disaster nursing is a specialized area of nursing in which nurses participate and care for individuals affected by a disaster. The purpose of this article is to describe what disaster nursing involves and offer an overview of the challenges that a nurse can face. An explanation of the word disaster along with what it entails is also provided. Details such as how disasters are classified, along with how certain aspects of the community and daily living are affected are discussed. There are three phases of a disaster; preparedness, relief response and recovery and nurses do and should assist in each of them. However, disaster relief response rarely, if ever, is smooth and there are challenges. Difficulties within disaster nursing such as logistical problems and ethical dilemmas are investigated in this article. Raising awareness to these problems and educating others about disaster nursing in general is the final goal of this article.

Artikeln har publicerats i Novias serie och kan läsas i sin helhet på novia.fi.