Knowledge, attitudes and competence in nursing practice of typhoon disaster relief work among Chinese nurses: A questionnaire survey

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationships among nurses' knowledge of, attitudes towards and level of competence in nursing practice, as well as factors influencing nurses' competence in nursing practice, in typhoon disaster relief work. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted using a self-developed questionnaire to obtain data from 607 nurses working in four tertiary hospitals and two secondary hospitals in Fujian, China, in November 2011. Our findings show that the nurses' average percentage scores on their responses to questions in the domains of knowledge, attitudes and practice were 66.33%, 68.87% and 67.60%, respectively. The findings demonstrated a significant positive relationship between nurses' attitudes and their practice. Nurses' working unit, prior training in typhoon disaster relief, current position of employment and attitudes were significant predictors of nurses' competence in practice. The results indicate that strategies need to be developed for nurses to improve their knowledge, attitudes and practice.