Introduction: A study of the history of human wars, especially recent wars, shows that many countries have covert and overt access to chemical, microbial and nuclear weapons. The Ba'athist regime in Iraq used mustard gas extensively against our country 92 times, and its late effects are still observed among the chemically injured. In fact, the lack of the right attitude, knowledge, and skills about countermeasures has made Iran the biggest victim of chemical warfare in the world. In this article, we try to study the ways of gaining attitude, knowledge, and skills of protective measures in chemical warfare of the new incoming students of the Army Nursing School and provide appropriate solutions.
Method: This descriptive-survey study examines the ways of gaining the attitude, knowledge, and skills of protective measures in chemical warfare of new incoming students of the Army Nursing School. About 78 nursing students who had not received military training in the School of Nursing were selected data collected through a researcher-made questionnaire and checklist. The face validation and the Cronbach's alpha were used to determine the validity and reliability of the. The results were analyzed using SPSS- 20 and statistical tests. (P≥0.05)
Findings: Based on the findings, through the acquisition of chemical knowledge, Basij % 32.7, high school defense readiness %37.7, IRIB %35.1 and written sources had an average of %32. In addition, the average attitude about chemical warfare from Basij training method, high school defense readiness, IRIB, and newspapers and books was 102.8, 108.6, 92.87, and 103.6 percentage respectivly. ANOVA test did not show a significant difference between the methods of acquiring knowledge (p=0.94) and attitude (p= 0.16). (P>0.05) This indicates that students were not statistically significantly different in terms of knowledge and attitude of chemical warfare in the mentioned methods. The effect of Basij on creating protective readiness of students is %44.18, defense readiness of high school %45.78, IRIB %42.62 and newspapers and books was %44.07, which indicates a statistically significant difference in methods of acquiring personal protection skills in chemical attacks. (P≥0.05)
Conclusion: It is necessary to increase the knowledge and skills of military nurses at the forefront of dealing with such events, and the lack of such preparations or the belief that such preparations are unnecessary is a catasrophe. In addition, medical centers and other accident-related organizations should also conduct training courses in this regard.