Healthcare Worker's View on Disaster Management in Saudi Arabia Report

This report provides a literature review on healthcare workers' perspectives on disaster management in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the challenges and the role of leadership. The geographical vulnerability of Saudi Arabia to natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, and water scarcity, is highlighted, along with the existing disaster management framework. The report discusses the perception of healthcare workers, emphasizing the impact of disasters on healthcare delivery and the importance of effective leadership. It examines relevant theories such as substantial development management, system theory, and policy process theory in the context of disaster management. The report also identifies gaps in the existing literature, particularly regarding the healthcare workforce's role and the need for proactive strategies. The methodology includes a review of databases like HMIC, Pubmed, and Google Scholar, using keywords such as disaster management, healthcare providers, and leadership. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of assessing healthcare workers' perceptions to improve disaster preparedness and response in Saudi Arabia.

Running Head: HEALTHCARE WORKER’S VIEW ON DISASTER MANAGEMENT
HEALTHCARE WORKER’S VIEW ON DISASTER MANAGEMENT
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Literature Review
Saudi Arabia is prone to natural disasters due to its position on the globe and
behavioural attitudes of human being. In spite of being a well-developed kingdom, the
healthcare department face challenges regarding the disaster management program. An
effective leadership is very much important to establish a well equipped health care system
for managerial activities. Clinical leadership has been promoted critically to achieve and
sustain the quality of care and safety for the patient. In this section, the paper will discuss
about the role of leadership in health care.
Overview of existing Disaster Management in Saudi Arabia
The geographical location of Saudi Arabia refers that the nation is so much vulnerable
to natural hazards. Most commonly visible natural hazards in this country are floods (Notably
Saudi Arabia does not has rivers but has wadis that are actually riverbeds) (Youssef, Pradhan
and Sefry 2016), earthquakes, water scarcity, and volcano. According to the researches, Saudi
Arabia has been gone through 14 natural disasters over the last three decades. Flood has
shown the most crucial image in particularly the locality of Jeddah comparing the disasters
happened during the past thirty years. As per the assessment of Global Facility for Disaster
Reduction and Recovery, unorganised development planning for the urban area is one of the
major reasons behind all the natural disasters.
Government has taken many initiatives in regards to the risk management. However,
the disaster risk management (DRM) structure of Saudi Arabia is not organised enough to
allocate the systematic final budget for this program (Robin 2013). To overcome the situation
the government has initiated some objectives to follow that includes, update the strategies for
risk management and disaster preparedness, strengthen the usage of land and building codes,
and to ensure a strong functioning of pre-disaster warning system (Al- Hujran et al., 2015).

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From 2009, the Government Disaster Risk Management system initiated some
activities that includes overview of the regional natural disaster, workshops and seminars
related for knowledge development and knowledge share, and training to manage and assess
the post-disaster situations. Hence, the risk management department demands to continue the
government supported activities that include, planning extensive risk management of disaster,
making a stronger urban resilience plan, and generating regional capacity for immediate
action activities (Al Thobaity et al., 2015).
Perception of Healthcare workers on disaster management
From the healthcare worker’s perception, natural disaster is a matter of consistency.
According to them human behaviour and activities are the core reason for all the natural
disasters. As a result, the entire Saudi Arabia is suffering for continual natural disasters from
past few decades. Therefore, health institutions and societies are facing random challenges in
their daily livelihood (Dolan, Halt 2013). Asian Disaster Reduction Centre has defined
disaster as a crucial disruption of the activity of the community, reasoning widespread
human, components, or loss of environmental condition, which lower down the ability of co-
working of society with its own resources. The result of natural disasters is not only limited
to loss of lives and loss of infrastructure but also interrupts the usual healthcare delivery and
nourishing the victims.
According to general studies, disasters can be classified into two categories namely
natural and man-made disasters. Healthcare study categorise disaster as internal and external
that requires an appropriate developmental and rescue strategies (Sahebjamnia, Torabi and
Mansouri 2015). This study also states that natural disaster depends on human activities and
its consequences. The expected consequence of natural disaster is three dimensional that
includes expectation of serious harm, impact over the healthcare department for the rescue
program, and evaluation the challenges to work accordingly. Healthcare workers follow a

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disaster management cycle (Malilay et al., 2014) that refers to preparing mitigation and
response to disaster. They also maintain restoration strategies for both the pre-disaster and
post disaster conditions. The role of an effective leader in the healthcare program leads to
managing the consequences in an organized way. Ideal leadership will assist in maintaining
systematic thinking while implying the strategies of management (Huber 2013). This is
important stating the present situation of Saudi Arabia. Hence, the article will highlight the
demographic view of healthcare workers from a leader’s perspective for an effective disaster
management. It is worth mentioning that the government of Saudi Arabia is also encouraging
participation of public sectors as public sector for providing healthcare facilities according to
the National transportation plan (Aljoufie 2014).
Substantial Development Management Theory
Disaster management has become an integral part of social and environmental
development. Substantial development of management theory affirms the immediate need of
disaster risk management. The objectives of substantial development of disaster management
can achieved by reducing the risk factors. This theory focuses on how the world will cope up
with climate change, loss of biodiversity, scarcity of resource, and conflicts. This theory has a
core belief that states about development that will fulfil the requirement of present without
compromising the needs of future generation to survive (Curnin 2015)
The aim of this management theory is to derivate hunger from the society, providing
quality solutions and education of healthcare, acquiring gender equality, and making the
economic growth sustainable.
System Theory in disaster management
According to this theory the outcome of difficult dynamics that involves interaction of
innumerable systems between three main programs, that includes the physical environment,

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nature of social and demographic features, and the construction industry. System approach
depends on optimization, multi-objective analysis, and optimisation including great approach
regarding disaster management having emergency context. According to system theory, it is
necessary to bring the interdisciplinary resource to outline its strategies and improve the
emergency (Cavallo and Ireland 2014).
As per the name suggest, this theory is assisted by many scientific and technical
strategies to aid the natural disaster and other technological disasters (Abidi, Leeuw and
Klumpp 2014). To define the system theory it should be mentioned that, it is a collection of
different non-structural and structural components that are related and systematic in a way
that leads towards the achievement of some specific objective by controlling and distributing
the material resources, information, and energy.
Policy process theory in disaster management
This theory focuses on the policies initiated by government to manage the
consequences of natural disasters. Larger natural disasters can bring changes in the country
government policies. Similarly, in the case of local flooding the regional government policies
changes according to the need (Sweis et al., 2013). The base of the theory is made on the
influences of the policy process initiated by the government. As the policies are the reflection
of the perception of the government towards natural disaster. For example, in terms of Saudi
Arabia, the policies generated by the government will be the policy process approach towards
management of disaster risk.
Another feature of this theory is setting agenda. Agenda refers to a group of problems
that requires a complete understanding of causes, solutions, symbols related to public issues
that will be taken care by generating different government policies.

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Literature gap
This article has mentioned three theories related to disaster management and its
relation with healthcare industry. A combined study of these three theories approaches
towards depriving poverty as a post-disaster consequence, systematic handling of both pre-
hazardous and post-hazardous situations, and importance of government initiatives towards
disaster management. However, not all the approaches reflect any systematic aspect on
predetermination of natural calamities. As per the discussed topic, disaster preparedness
refers to the identification of certain necessary activities to minimise and avoid the disaster
effect consequences. Disaster is considered to be one of the core component of risk reduction.
These approaches also have not mentioned the importance of networking to spread the
awareness of disaster management. The area of interconnection between healthcare
workforce towards disaster management is not explored in the mentioned theories.
In this research the paper will mention the responsibility of a healthcare subject matter
expert in influencing and assessing the perception of healthcare workers on disaster
management in Saudi Arabia. As the above mentioned theories do not have any clarification
regarding healthcare perception towards disaster management. Also they do not state any
strategies to assess the precautions to be taken for healthcare workforce during natural
disasters. This research will bring forward the necessary responsibilities of healthcare
workforce to manage the disaster management according to the rules and regulation of Saudi
Arabia. This paper will scientifically research about the characteristics, causes, and
consequences of hazards and the perception of healthcare industry towards its management.
Process of Literature review
This research paper will reflect on the notion about healthcare worker’s perception
towards disaster risk management. Literature review is important for a research work to

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survey books, articles, journals, newspaper articles with proper relation with the subject
matter. It gives you a proper design to explore while researching for objectives. It also helps
to trace the intellectual progression in the selected field. A literature review places each work
with comparing it with the thinking of other scholars.
The process of literature review includes the selection procedure of the database. It
will mention the sources the database were collected. After that the process will mention the
keywords used to search for the relative articles. Some criterions are there to determine the
relativity of the articles. At the end the process will record, the tool has been used to measure
the strength and weakness of the selected articles. For the literature review, the following
processes are followed chronologically.
Databases – The concept has been found with two variables namely overview of disaster
management and perception of healthcare workforce on disaster management. To clarify the
understanding the research work demands understanding of some theories. The databases
were collected from the journal available on HMIC, Pubmed, and Google Scholar.
Keywords – The literature review of this research work needs a proper identification of
appropriate theories. Related keywords were used to find the journals in Google Scholar.
Some of the keywords are healthcare providers, overview of disaster management, disaster
management policies in Saudi Arabia, challenges and leadership.
Inclusion criteria – For the literature review the articles and journals are selected based on
some criteria. The journals should be in relation with healthcare industry. In simple words
articles related to nursing and healthcare. Articles mentioning perception of healthcare
responsibilities towards disaster management. Additionally, for a basic requirement the
articles must be in English language. Article in any other language will not be considered to

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mention for this literature review work. Articles published after 2008 will be taken for this
research only.
Exclusion Criteria – This literature review also have some criterions to be avoided.
Perception of administrative staff about health care are not required for this article. Non
English article are not required for any kind of information to be included in this literary
work. Extensively, articles published before 2009 will not be referred in this literature review.
Boolean Operators search – It is a type of operation which combine two keywords with
operators or modifiers such as ‘or’, ‘and’. To put it simply, keywords such as disaster
preparedness or management. For another instance, disaster capabilities and overview,
disaster management and challenges.
Critical Appraisal – For the literature review process, some articles and journals have been
reviewed. To critically analyse the research papers, it should be mentioned that the mentioned
theories neglected the perception of healthcare regarding disaster management. Few of the
articles only mentioned about depriving the poverty after any natural disaster. But there is no
mention of overall responsibilities of the healthcare industry to overcome the hazardous
situation. Some self-assessing questions has been made to measure the strength and
weaknesses of the selected articles. Whether the article is sufficient to meet all the
requirements necessary for literature review. The nature of the theoretical guidelines to assist
the study. Relativity of the authors study with the discussed topic.
Overall, the for the critical appraisal of this literature review ETQS tool was used
(Das et al. 2015). It is a tool to measure the feasibility of considering organised analysis
based on its effectiveness. This is a qualitative study tool to appraise any literary work and
identify its relativity accordingly.

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