Perceived Disaster Preparedness Scale: development and preliminary results from the Netherlands

Abstract

Citizen resilience and preparedness for disasters are linked and predictive of preparedness behaviour. Existing measures of perceived disaster preparedness are limited to subdimensions or types of disasters. A multidimensional perceived preparedness measurement could provide policymakers with more insight into strengths and weaknesses of individuals’ resilience to disasters. Using qualitative data (n = 4384) from four European countries and existing scales, we developed 53 items across 7 proposed perceived preparedness dimensions to assess perceived disaster preparedness in adults (n = 1000) for four different disasters: war, power outage, flood and pandemic. Correlations between subdimensions and related constructs (e.g., resilience, risk perception) indicated that the scale demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity. We used regression to investigate whether levels of perceived preparedness subdimensions differed by disaster type and individual characteristics. We distilled seven dimensions of perceived preparedness (24 items total) across the four disasters: home preparedness, financial preparedness, mental preparedness, physical preparedness, social preparedness, knowledge about preparedness, and motivation to prepare. Respondents scored highest on home preparedness. Compared with other scenarios, people felt less physically prepared but more knowledgeable for pandemics, while motivation to prepare was lower than for war. Preparedness dimensions predictably were associated with home, general, and social preparedness behaviours. Older and higher educated respondents generally felt more prepared; women reported higher household preparedness in all scenarios but armed conflict. We conclude that perceived preparedness dimensions offer additional insight into population subgroups and recommend that multi-hazard preparedness policy could move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and target specific preparedness domains that apply across scenarios.