Health in Emergencies and Disasters Quarterly
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Winter 2021

The primary purpose of this literature review is to investigate different views of elective surgery management during the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, the guidelines about diseases prevention and their proper management during performing elective surgeries have been reviewed.

Current articles related to COVID-19 and practicing elective surgeries in different remarkable EndNote X8 database journals in 2020 were retrieved. All articles referring to COVID-19 precaution rules in implementing elective surgeries were integrated into the article’s main goals.

All reviews showed alarming guideline steps that should be taken for validated preventing and managing elective surgeries practiced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emphasizing qualified elective surgery protocols were quoted in many articles to do elective surgeries with successful results.

Taking effective and evidence-based steps in patients` selection, precautions, and hospitals` safety cares result in protective surgical results. Elective surgeries should be practiced in highly-equipped hospitals with extraordinary quarantine measures during a COVID-19 pandemic. Safety measures are the primary goal for patients, staff, surgeons, and other health providers before surgeons get involved with any elective surgeries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions of how different elective surgical operations are planned during the COVID-19 pandemic are essential controversies. As no clear answers are found to questions of how elective surgeries can be practiced during a COVID-19 pandemic, specific rules issued by the world’s most authentic surgical associations have been adopted by surgeons to operate elective surgeries.

Iran is a disaster-prone country, which in recent years has been affected by heavy rainfall and consequent flooding. In March 26, 2019, heavy rainfall in northern parts of Iran resulted in flooding. The situation became more critical when central and western provinces were affected, finally causing significant damages in 25 provinces. The most affected areas were Golestan, and Khuzestan provinces with significant damages to their infrastructure, killing 76 people. 

This qualitative study aims to describe the findings and results of field visits in flood-hit provinces of Lorestan, Khuzestan and Golestan. All interviews were held with experts in late April 2019.

Golestan province was in recovery phase and Lorestan and Khuzestan provinces were in response phase. Due to the acute conditions of these two mentioned areas, it was not possible to visit all areas. In Lorestan Province Treatment and Emergency Situations; In Golestan Province Health Status and in Khuzestan Province Pre-hospital Care and Rescue Support were visited and evaluated. The field visited results indicate the presence of government forces and people in the field and provide comprehensive assistance to the flood-affected areas.

There are numerous hazards each year, but few documented lessons are available for researchers. Due to the importance of applying lessons for community development it is imperative that special attention be paid to the discussion of emergency and disaster research and the presence of specialized researchers to record lessons learned. Although organizations make significant efforts during disasters, the specialized research force for recording these achievements in disasters remains neglected. Therefore, it is valuable to document and apply appropriate documentation to promote interventions and responses to possible future events.

After the Kermanshah earthquake on November 12, 2017, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences dispatched a response team to the earthquake-stricken areas. This team provided the affected people with health services for 10 days. This article intends to examine the experience of this team in Kermanshah earthquake-stricken areas.

After the team’s return from Kermanshah, a meeting was held to examine the challenges and review the learned lessons with 60 participants, including authorities and the people who were members of the team. The discussed issues were coded using content analysis. The similar codes were merged, and then categories were extracted.

The analysis of discussions led to 9 categories of experiences that included delay in recalling process and its challenges, lack of preparedness, use of the virtual space capacity, lack of proper assessment of the health needs and the estimation of facilities, management experience of the team on the dispatch, shortcomings, and imperfections, managerial challenges, lack of coordination, and setting up of field hospitals without planning.

Iran is susceptible to natural disasters, and from time to time, parts of the country are affected by these disasters. One of the priorities in these disasters is people’s need for health services. Since health facilities in the area usually encounter problems in these circumstances, other medical universities should provide help and relief. The present experience shows that there are still many challenges that should be addressed.

Job satisfaction is one of the most critical and influential parameters to increase the productivity and efficiency of any organization. Crisis management during disasters is one of the most influential factors, and because disasters put pressure on health care systems, all medical staff, including those working in Rehabilitation, must have the necessary experience and skills to manage in an emergency. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and crisis-related factors in the staff of non-governmental rehabilitation centers under the supervision of the Tehran Welfare Organization with a preventive approach.

The present study is a descriptive-correlational study, in which 1403 people from 28 rehabilitation centers in Tehran Province in 2018 were surveyed and selected by the census. We used the data recorded in the demographic section of the standard Employee Satisfaction Survey. This questionnaire consists of 39 items and 5 subscales to measure job status (10 questions), supervisor (8 questions), coworkers (10 questions), promotion (5 questions), and payment (6 questions). It included components of job activity, management, group activities, incentive system, and payment system. The study demographic characteristics were age, gender, level of education, work experience, and the number of working hours. Besides, a researcher-made questionnaire was used to assess the relationship between general safety status and firefighting as a criterion for crisis management and job satisfaction. In different cases, different tests were used. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS v. 20.

In this study, 657 (46.8%) men and 746 (53.2%) women participated. Findings showed that the average job satisfaction of employees was 3.12, which was at a moderate to high level (maximum score in each department was 5). There was no significant relationship between demographic information (such as age, work experience, level of education, and the number of working hours) and job satisfaction. However, there was a significant relationship between gender and job satisfaction, so that men had higher job satisfaction than women. Also, there was a significant relationship between public safety and firefighting and job satisfaction, so that an increase in the score of general safety and firefighting as an indicator of crisis management led to a significant increase in job satisfaction.

According to the results of the researcher-made and validated questionnaires, the level of job satisfaction of employees in the studied centers is in a relatively good condition. Although the level of job satisfaction of the studied employees was moderately high, it needs to be improved. Job satisfaction in crisis management in emergencies can be very effective and improve the performance of the organization. Thus, it is recommended to implement programs for job satisfaction and crisis management in the centers.

Iran is an earthquake-prone country, and a considerable rural population lives in earthquake-prone areas. With many worn-out areas, incompetent houses, and relatively underdeveloped rural areas, it is necessary to pay special attention to risk reduction and subsequent measures in these areas.

Among the current methods, HAZUS is one of the most common methods in estimating potential losses in an earthquake. We used it to calculate the buildings’ estimated losses in the earthquake based on the instructions. Because one of the main issues in disaster management is to choose locations for emergency or temporary settlement of population affected by the distracter, this research tries to carry this out based on the derived results from the damage using fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). After reviewing the previous studies and the experts’ opinions, the major and minor criteria affecting the selection of temporary settlement locations were identified.

Results suggested that using the damage rate of the studied buildings in the studied area and after choosing six priorities in the pilot village of Vaneshan, priority number 1 was chosen as the best option for temporary settlement in this village. Ultimately, the required items for the evacuees were determined by using the standards of supplying the essentials for the evacuees.

Regarding the study area, the results of the damage analysis of the area show that the rate of damage with extensive and complete levels in the villages is very high, which leads to a large number of homeless people with the urgent need to provide adequate shelter. This endower requires a lot of money, and the relevant managers should already be thinking about finding financial resources for it. This issue is not only related to the study area and applies to the whole of Iran.

Hospitals are highly vulnerable to fire because of the presence of vulnerable people (patients, medical staff, and visitors), expensive equipment, and the ignorance and low-risk perception of occupants. Injuries caused by fire can result in life and financial losses and can disrupt the performance of a hospital. Fire risk assessment is an effective way to assess vulnerability, capacity, and capability. This study aims to evaluate the risk of fire and identify the effective factors and their contribution to a hospital. 

This cross-sectional study was conducted using the Fire Risk Assessment Method for Engineering (FRAME) in the equipment room of a hospital in Qazvin, Iran. The fire risk was first calculated by using the related formulas in Excel software. Then, the influential factors and their contribution to the overall risk were determined to perform corrective measures for reducing the risk.

The numerical value of risk for the building and its contents, occupants, and activities were 2.075, 3.315, and 2.481, respectively (>1), indicating its unacceptable level. Factors affecting the potential risk level for the building and its content and occupants were fire load, venting, and access. Regarding the acceptable risk level, the activation factor was identified as an influential factor in all domains. The highest contribution in the potential risk level for the building and its content and occupants was related to the fire load factor (1.6). In the acceptable risk level, the highest contribution was related to the activation factor (0.4).

The FRAME method can also identify effective factors and their contribution to the overall fire risk of medical centers such as hospitals to help develop plans and special measures to reduce the risk.

Road accidents are among the most important causes of death and severe personal and financial injuries. Also, its profound social, cultural, and economic effects threaten human societies. This study aimed to estimate the trend of traffic accident victims in Yazd Province, Iran, to predict the number of traffic accident victims in this province.

Based on traffic casualty statistics referred to forensic medicine in Yazd Province within April 1989 and March 2017 referred to Forensic Medicine of Yazd Province and using an artificial neural network to predict the number of injured for 12 months ending in 2020 has been paid. The neural network used in this study had 12 inputs, one output, and 5 hidden layers. The network predicts the relationship between data after training and learning. The network is considered the MSE benchmark.

The number of injured in traffic accidents in Yazd Province in 2020 was equal to 7052 people, with the highest number in December with 832 people and the lowest in June with 414 people. The exact method of use was equal to 92 cases.

The trend of traffic accident casualties in Yazd Province in 2020 will be declining. For future research, the exact method designed in this study can be examined with other methods for the best response level.