Department of Social Work, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152, USA.
J Community Health. 2013 Feb;38(1):106-12. doi: 10.1007/s10900-012-9587-3.
Over eleven million children in the United States have special health care needs. These unique needs can burden community and emergency responders after a disaster, complicating rescue and recovery efforts and generating reunification needs. Family disaster preparedness can help to moderate the extent that community resources are utilized by preparing families to be self-sustaining after a disaster and streamline access to medical care when needed. This study explored differences in two populations of families of children with special health care needs to determine if geographic differences exist in preparedness levels and whether a brief education intervention would prove successful in increasing baseline preparedness levels across both populations. A brief education intervention was delivered by trained community health educators to 210 families of children with special health care needs. A quasiexperimental pre-posttest design was used to compare baseline preparedness levels and 1 month follow-up levels. Although there was no difference in preparedness levels based on geographic location, both populations demonstrated a statistically significant increase in preparedness levels post-intervention. This study provides additional evidence that a brief education intervention helps to increase preparedness levels among families of children with special health care needs.
美国有超过 1100 万儿童有特殊的医疗保健需求。这些独特的需求可能会给社区和应急响应人员带来负担，使救援和恢复工作变得复杂，并产生团聚需求。家庭灾难准备可以通过使家庭在灾难后能够自给自足并在需要时简化医疗服务的获取，从而有助于减轻社区资源的利用程度。本研究探讨了具有特殊医疗保健需求的儿童的两个群体的家庭之间的差异，以确定在准备水平上是否存在地理差异，以及简短的教育干预是否能够成功提高两个群体的基线准备水平。经过培训的社区健康教育者向 210 名有特殊医疗保健需求的儿童的家庭提供了简短的教育干预。采用准实验前后测试设计来比较基线准备水平和 1 个月后的随访水平。尽管地理位置上的准备水平没有差异，但两个群体在干预后都表现出准备水平的统计学显著提高。这项研究提供了更多证据表明，简短的教育干预有助于提高有特殊医疗保健需求的儿童家庭的准备水平。
