Psychometric evaluation of a disaster preparedness perception instrument among paramedic students in Saudi Arabia: A Factor Analytic Study
This study psychometrically evaluated the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool (DPET) among 152 Saudi paramedic students, refining the original 36-item instrument into a robust, four-factor, 24-item structure with strong internal consistency to better assess disaster preparedness in Emergency Medical Services populations.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
When a disaster strikes, whether a sudden earthquake, a flood, or a mass casualty event, the first people on the scene are often emergency medical responders. These individuals must act quickly, often without the full support of a hospital or a clear chain of command, relying instead on their training and their own sense of readiness. For students training to become paramedics, this preparation is not just about learning medical procedures; it is about understanding how to think, plan, and react when the world around them becomes chaotic. Educators need a way to measure how ready these students feel, but the tools used to ask these questions must be precise. If a questionnaire is too long, confusing, or asks about things students have never experienced, the answers will not reflect their true capabilities. The goal is to find a clear, reliable way to see what these future responders actually know and believe they can do.
In Saudi Arabia, researchers set out to refine a specific survey known as the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool. Originally designed for experienced nurses, this survey contained thirty-six questions intended to gauge how prepared a professional feels for a crisis. The researchers wanted to see if this same tool worked well for undergraduate paramedic students, a group with different training and life experiences. They gathered responses from one hundred and fifty-two students across the country. The students were mostly in their fourth year of study, with an average age of twenty-one, and were evenly split between men and women. The researchers asked them to rate their agreement with various statements about their knowledge, skills, and confidence in handling disaster scenarios.
The analysis revealed that the original thirty-six questions were too broad for this specific group of students. When the researchers examined the patterns in the answers, they found that twelve of the questions did not fit well with the others. Some questions asked about activities that students simply had not done yet, such as helping to write official government guidelines or accessing specialized research literature. These items were removed, leaving a streamlined set of twenty-four questions. This shorter version proved to be a much clearer picture of the students' minds, organizing their feelings about disaster readiness into four distinct areas.
The first and largest area identified was what the researchers called clinical competence and response confidence. This group of ten questions focused on the students' belief in their ability to take charge and perform medical tasks under pressure. It included feelings about leading a team, managing a temporary shelter, and providing health education even when stressed. The second area was system familiarity and personal preparedness. This section combined six questions about how well the students knew the local emergency systems and whether they had made personal plans for their own families. It suggested that for these students, being ready for work was deeply connected to being ready at home. The third area was educational engagement and active learning. These six questions measured how much the students were actually doing to learn, such as participating in drills, attending seminars, or helping to draft emergency plans, rather than just passively reading about them. The final, smallest area was triage and risk awareness, consisting of just two questions. This measured their understanding of how to sort patients when there are too many for the available resources and their awareness of the specific dangers in their own communities.
The study showed that these four areas were not just random groupings but represented real, separate ways the students thought about their job. The researchers found that the questions within each group were very consistent with one another, meaning the tool was reliable. They noted that the students clearly distinguished between their confidence in performing medical acts, their personal and system-level planning, their active participation in learning, and their specific knowledge of sorting injured people. This distinction is important because it shows that disaster readiness is not a single, blurry feeling of "being ready." Instead, it is made up of several specific skills and mindsets that can be measured and improved individually.
While the new twenty-four-question tool is a significant step forward, the researchers are careful to note that this is a starting point. The study was based on a single group of students at one point in time, and the final group of questions regarding triage was quite small. The authors suggest that this refined tool needs to be tested again with a larger number of students from different universities to confirm that the results hold true everywhere. Until then, this twenty-four-item version offers a solid, mathematically sound foundation for understanding how paramedic students in Saudi Arabia perceive their ability to handle disasters. It shifts the focus away from abstract professional duties that students have not yet encountered and toward the immediate, practical actions and personal preparations that define their current readiness.
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