Evaluating Disaster Literacy And Individual Disaster Resistance Among Municipal Employees

A disaster is a situation that disrupts daily life and causes losses that the society cannot compensate for with its own resources. Disaster literacy enables us to know what a disaster is and how disaster risk can be reduced. Individual disaster resilience is important to prevent damage. The aim of our study is to determine the disaster literacy and individual disaster resilience levels of municipal employees and to evaluate the factors that may be related to disaster literacy. This cross-sectional study was conducted among the employees of Odunpazarı Municipality. The working group consisted of 636 municipal employees. Disaster Literacy Scale (DLS) and Individual Disaster Resilience Scale (IDRS) were used in our study. Man-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman correlation analysis and multivariate linear regression analysis were used in statistical analysis. 428 of the participants in the study group were men. Their age with a mean of 40.3±8.5 years. Their DLS scores with a mean of 210.2 ± 42.8 points. It was found that there was a moderately positive relationship between the scores that municipal employees received from the DLS and the scores they received from the IDRS. It can be said that the disaster literacy and individual disaster resilience of the employees of Eskişehir Odunpazarı Municipality are at a medium level. It was found that disaster literacy is related to education level, knowledge of disaster risks in their region, knowledge of gathering places in their region, feeling prepared for possible disasters and individual disaster resilience.