Characterizing Public Health Emergency Perceptions and Influential Modifiers of Willingness to Respond Among Pediatric Healthcare Staff

The authors surveyed hospital-based pediatric staff in 2009 to characterize their perceptions of, and willingness to respond during, public health emergencies, with the goal of developing a methodology for an institution-specific training package to improve response willingness. The vast majority of respondents indicated a need for more training to respond to the survey scenarios (pandemic influenza and radiological dispersal device), and the authors found six “distinct perceived attitudes/beliefs that had an institution-specific high impact on response willingness: colleague response, skill mastery, safety getting to work, safety at work, ability to perform duties, and individual response efficacy.”