Summary: This practical report aims to introduce a Disaster Nursing Program for Nursing Students (DNPNS) at the Tachikawa Faculty of Nursing, Tokyo Healthcare University. The DNPNS is a four-year program. As a first step in the DNPNS, students learn basic disaster nursing and medicine, such as the history of disasters in Japan, how to handle corpses, and triage methods. In the second step, students acquire knowledge of the laws related to disasters and the various phases of disaster management. They deepen their understanding of disasters from meteorological and architectural perspectives. Experts in these fields are invited as lecturers for each class. In Step 3, lectures and exercises are conducted on community disaster prevention, evacuation center management, and responses to special disasters. For community disaster prevention, students can research disaster prevention plans from various local governments and gain insight into the reality of community-based disaster prevention by presenting unique prevention strategies. They have also conducted a simulation of shelter management using cards, addressing issues that Japanese evacuation centers may face, including potential health problems during an influx of disaster victims. Additionally, students receive practical instructions from Disaster Medical Assistance Team(DMAT) members on secondary triage at first-aid stations and practice these skills. Through these exercises, the students can apply the knowledge acquired in Steps 1 and 2 to solve practical problems. Finally, in the fourth step, a five-day practical training program is conducted. The program includes five key components: tabletop exercises for handling numerous disaster victims as hospital nurses, mass casualty incident triage simulation, shelter setup and management simulation, initial response training for disaster situations, and participation in a Disaster Base Hospital drill, where they act as either victims or nursing staff. Through these programs, focus has been devoted to developing practical disaster-nursing skills.
Horita et al. (Sun,) studied this question.