An Important Concept of Protecting Public Health in Disaster Situations: Disaster Nursing

Since Florence Nightingale, nurses have undertaken a variety of roles in disaster management with their evaluation making skills, prioritization, communication, cooperation and critical thinking skills. Therefore, nurses are held responsible for gaining necessary knowledge and skills in disaster management and to be prepared for possible disasters. Nurses whatever their area of expertise should know disaster management and should be entitled to take charge in all phases of disaster. In order that a disaster nurse can serve skillfully as expected, many issues are needed to be addressed such as his/her responsibilities, training, and scope of services, performing researches in the fi eld of disaster nursing, etc. This requirement can be assessed as a key necessity in Turkey as well for the creation of the training infrastructure, terms of references defi nition and fi nding workspace in compliance with modern roles and function of nurses. In this study, the issue of disaster nursing which is important for public health is assessed, current situation is evaluated and recommendations are developed in line with the requirements mentioned above