A Longitudinal Study of Hospital Safety From Disasters in Kermanshah Province, Iran: Insights for Disaster Risk Reduction

Objective: The Hospital Safety Index (HSI) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) was adopted by most countries to evaluate the safety of hospitals against disasters. This study aimed to assess the status of hospital safety from disasters between 2016 and 2022 in Kermanshah province in Iran.Methods: This is a retrospective longitudinal study which investigated HSI data from 23 hospitals. Data were gathered by Farsi Hospital Safety Index (FHSI) and analyzed with a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA).Results: The risk of hydro-meteorological (from 43.1 to 32.7) and biological hazards (51.3 to 35.5) significantly decreased. Although structural safety remained constant (from 67.8 to 70.1), nonstructural (from 51.5 to 71.2), and functional (from 47.1 to 71.2) safety scores increased significantly over study period.Conclusions: The findings revealed hospitals safety in Kermanshah province gradually improved. However, the health-care stakeholders should pay the necessary attention to improving the structural safety of hospitals.