3. Uluslararası 4. Ulusal Halk Sağlığı Hemşireliği Kongresi, Erzurum, Turkey, 11 January - 13 May 2023, pp.244
Introduction and Objective: Approximately 60% of the casualties due to disasters occur due to earthquakes. Various previous studies reveal that university students do not have any concerns about the occurrence of disasters, their motivation for disaster preparedness is lacking, their awareness about evacuation exits and evacuation areas is low, their level of knowledge is low, lack personal disaster preparedness and the presence of various behavioral responses that do not support self-protection during seismic activity. This study aimed to discover and develop the strengths and weaknesses of a group of university students during a possible earthquake, their behavior towards evacuation and assembly areas, and their adaptation to the emergency disaster plan. Materials-Methods: The research was carried out between May-June 2022 as “liberating/developing/critical action research,” a subtype of action research, one of the qualitative research methods. The study was conducted on students in a university’s Medical Imaging Techniques Program. The students enrolled in the “Volunteering Studies II” course, whose behavior will be observed during the earthquake drill, were selected by purposive sampling and consisted of 40 people. Thirty-five students participated in the first drill, and 31 participated in the second. The study data were collected through “observations” made with the installed cameras and “focus group interviews” with the students through semi-structured interview forms. Observations were evaluated with the “List of Behaviors to be Observed During an Earthquake Drill,” consisting of 10 items prepared by researchers. To carry out the study, the ethics committee approval numbered 06.04.2022/04-17 from the Non-Interventional Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Kütahya Health Sciences University, and the institutional permissions from the institution where the study was carried out numbered 07.03.2022/42770, and 16.03.2022/96233 were taken. Maxqda and SPSS package programs were used in the study data analysis, and the content analysis technique was used to interpret the qualitative data. Results: The mean age of the participants was 20.88±1.28 (min. 19.00; max. 25.00), of which 63.0% (n=17) were women. 70.4% (n=19) of the students had taken the “Emergency and Disaster Management” course before, and 77.8% (n=21) had participated in an emergency drill at least once before. While an average of 3.25 of the behaviors expected to be observed were displayed as expected by the students during the first drill, the average of the behaviors displayed during the second drill increased to 5.18. As a result of the synthesis of the qualitative data obtained from the focus group interviews, it was seen that two main themes were formed: “Drill management” and “Disaster experience.” The main theme of drill management was “Drill moment,” “Evacuation moment,” and “Drill experience” analytical themes. In contrast, the main theme of disaster experience was “Disaster cycle,” “Disaster perception,” “Disaster awareness,” and “Earthquake experience.” Conclusion: After the second drill, it was evaluated that the problems identified in the first were eliminated. The students’ adaptation to the emergency disaster plan increased by re-applying to the observation and focus group interviews. Keywords: Drill, disaster, earthquake, evacuation