International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | December 2019 | Vol 6 | Issue 12 Page 5246 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Tiwari N et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2019 Dec;6(12):5246-5249 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Knowledge of disaster preparedness among medical professionals in JNU Institute for Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Jaipur, Rajasthan Nitin Tiwari 1 , Vishal Bankwar 1 *, Ranjit K. Jha 1 , Aryak Singh 2 INTRODUCTION Disasters are contingent and unpredicted and can only be dealt with by effective disaster management plans. Disaster has never happened does not mean; it cannot happen. The number of natural and man-made disasters in the present era continues to rise worldwide. Medical personnel can prove to be a useful medical workforce in such a situation. 1 Medical personnel must understand their role and the gravity of the situation if a disaster happens, and they have to know basic strategies carried out in disaster management plan. As per the WHO, disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society causing widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its resources. 2 ABSTRACT Background: Disaster causes widespread destruction, disrupting people's lives and causing human suffering with communities finding it difficult to cope. Human beings may not have the power to stop it but they may have the ability to be prepared and minimize the impact of the disaster. The medical professionals play a pivotal role in a disaster situation and its knowledge is a must during their academics. This study was aimed to assess the level of knowledge of disaster preparedness among medical professionals. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the medical professionals in JNUIMSRC, Jaipur, Rajasthan. A total of 225 people were selected and interviewed. Data was collected using self-administered semi-structured questionnaire and scoring was done for the assessment of knowledge on disaster preparedness. Epi-info software version 7.2.3.1 was used for statistical analysis. Results: Out of a total of 225 respondents, 140 were females and 85 were males. The mean age of respondents was 20±0.58 and most of them were in the 18-24 years age-group (61.33%). A total of 191 (88.9%) respondents had either partial or total lack of knowledge regarding disaster preparedness. Most of the respondents, 195 (86.67%) had a view that there is a need to introduce disaster preparedness training program. Conclusions: The findings revealed that most of the study participants had not attended any training on disaster management and most of them had low knowledge about disaster preparedness. The integration of disaster education into the curriculum is believed to be the most effective strategy. Keywords: Disaster, Preparedness, Medical, Professionals 1 Department of Community Medicine, JNU Institute for Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India 2 SMS Medical College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India Received: 05 October 2019 Accepted: 12 November 2019 *Correspondence: Dr. Vishal Bankwar, E-mail: vishalbankwar@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20195479