The impact of educational and training programs on disaster awareness and preparedness among health sciences students: A quasi-experimental study

Disaster preparedness among health sciences students is critical but often insufficient. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a disaster awareness and impact reduction educational intervention in enhancing disaster preparedness. A quasi-experimental single-group pretest-posttest design was employed, with the intervention consisting of 16 h of education delivered over four weeks via a distance learning platform. The study involved 599 students from the faculties of health sciences, who were assessed at baseline and three months post-intervention. Results indicated that students’ baseline disaster preparedness levels were low, with no significant correlations found between demographic characteristics, previous disaster experiences, or prior disaster preparedness training and baseline preparedness levels. Repeated-measures Analysis of Variance confirmed a significant impact of the intervention after controlling for baseline preparedness levels. Significant improvements were observed post-intervention across all preparedness dimensions: disaster physical protection, disaster planning, disaster assistance, disaster warning systems, and total preparedness levels (p < .001). The most substantial gains were noted among students with initially low preparedness levels. These findings emphasize the importance of integrating disaster preparedness education into health sciences curricula to better equip future healthcare professionals for effective disaster response.