Studying the effect of outpatient education on family preparedness and awareness about natural disasters (case study: Khadem plan in North Khorasan province)

This study aims to investigate the effects of outpatient education based on the Khadem plan on the level of preparedness and awareness of the families against the natural disasters in North Khorasan province. In this semi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test, 2185 families were participated in Khorasan province (Bojnord and Esfarayen). About 60 families were selected based on multistage cluster sampling. The families responded the questionnaire about knowledge and disaster preparedness (Dodgson, 2010) before and after outpatient education (Khadem plan). Data analyzed using paired t-test, Chi-square, mean comparison and McNemar's test.
Findings The paired t-test results showed that there was a significant relationship between both pretest and posttest in the components of knowledge recognition and disaster preparedness scale (t=1/26); timely activity (t=2/14); education (t=0.93); and cooperation (t=2/07). It means that the families who participated in Khadem plan courses got a higher average for these four components. However, there was no significant difference between the scale of knowledge and preparedness about natural disasters (t=0.79) in the components of media importance. In addition, there was a significant difference in family preparedness assessment form after training courses (sig=0.02) according to McNemar's test. The Chi-squared test showed that outpatient education increases television watching and reading books related to natural disasters. The results show that the group outpatient education is effective in increasing the preparedness and awareness of the household against natural disasters and decreases damage and crisis caused by disasters along with other training courses (according to Khadem plan).