Effective Factors in Improving the Emergency Department Preparedness of Hospitals in Radiation and Nuclear Incidents and Nuclear Terrorism: A Systematic Review

Due to existence of nuclear power plant sites in various parts of the world, as well as political threats in disaster-prone areas throughout the world, there is a probability of nuclear and radiation incidents. The present study aimed to extract effective criteria in emergency department preparedness of hospitals in radiation, nuclear incidents and nuclear terrorism in different countries around the world.

A systematic search was carried out in Cochrane Library, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, ProQuest and Embase databases between Jan 1970 and Jul 2018. The systematic search was carried out according to the PRISMA standard. The required information was extracted from the papers based on the abstract and collection form.

Overall, 1091 papers were finally extracted. The initial search included research papers. After reviewing the papers’ titles, abstracts and full texts, 15 papers were selected for final analysis. Next, 32 criteria were extracted. The criteria were divided into 3 categories. The categories included staff, stuff and systems (structure). The most frequent criteria included training criteria, personal protective equipment, decontamination and practice.

The results of the systematic review provided an overview of the effective factors in improving the emergency department preparedness during radiation and nuclear incidents. In addition to the mentioned criteria in different studies, other hidden factors affect the emergency department preparedness in radiation and nuclear incidents. Thus, the highest level of preparedness should be considered.