Evaluating the readiness of environmental health teams in facing the crisis after the implementation of the operational maneuver: a case study of Tehran, Iran

Health preparedness and disaster management is one of the main elements of accident management and in its simplest form; it requires planning, personnel training, practice, and evaluation. The lack of research in the field of evaluation of environmental health teams in the face of crisis from managerial and executive aspects in Iran is a fundamental challenge for this range of healthcare workers when facing crises. This study aimed to investigate the level of preparedness of environmental health teams in facing the crisis after the implementation of an operational maneuver in a military hospital from the perspective of other participants in Tehran.

This cross-sectional study was conducted using a valid and reliable questionnaire, on 80 healthcare workers participating in the maneuver. The validity and content of distributed questionnaires were confirmed by pre-testing and confirmation by experts and reliability with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient α = 82.8%. The studied community, the selected healthcare workers, and the research sample were also the workers who participated in the operational maneuver and agreed to participate in the research. Data were analyzed using SPSS 17 software.

The level of preparedness for exposing disaster in the field of planning, organizing, leadership, and control were as follows: moderate (88/22 ± 20/50), weak (12/19 ± 45/41), weak (83/19 ± 04/41) and weak (17/19 ± 09/49), respectively. From the perspective of participants, the average rating for the overall managerial performance of the team and in the fields of planning, organizing, leadership, and control were different but the results of a t test showed that this difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Due to the poor performance of the environmental health team in managerial issues, short-term training programs in the field of crisis management and the consistent implementation of such programs for health teams are recommended. Also if possible, readiness in terms of management, planning, organizing, leading, and control should be considered as a priority.