Framework and contents of fundamental competencies
The ICN Disaster Nursing Competencies were developed after an analysis
of existing competency frameworks in the area of public health, mental
health, health care workers, emergency managers, nursing and disaster
nursing. Training materials and curricula were examined to understand the
intended outcomes of the programmes. Important to the development of
the competencies were two disaster nursing competency documents: (1)
Educational Competencies for Registered Nurses Responding to Mass Casualty
Incidents (Stanley, 2003), and (2) Core Competencies Required for Disaster
Nursing (Yamamoto, 2004). All efforts were made to incorporate the concepts
from these two documents into the competencies.