Evaluation of the natural risk perception, awareness, and preparedness at school by means of ad hoc questionnaires

One of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030 targets is to reduce the disruption of basic services, like educational facilities. Disaster education is actually considered to be an important factor to promote disaster risk reduction. The school resilience is not related to a specific hazard and vulnerability, but it takes into account many factors, including the people’s natural risk perception and awareness, along with their knowledge and capability of how to behave in an emergency. The scientific literature provides various notions of risk, risk perception, risk awareness, and risk preparedness. The literature on children’s natural risk perception is scarce and very recent compared with that about adults. Indeed, children’s perceptions about nature and environment are truly different from those of adults. The available research mainly concerns the implementation of earthquake emergency measures, while not much is available on flood-risk perception and even less on landslides. The relationship between risk perception, awareness, and preparedness is widely studied, but once again, there is no unambiguous or unique result that depends on the approach and the context. We decided to refine the questionnaire that contributes to assess the school-resilience employed in the Geo-hazard Safety Classification method (GSC). We designed 7 different questionnaires, one for the adult personnel and six for the students, taking into account the peculiarity of each age. These questionnaires were thought through and designed to investigate three main awareness fundamentals: i) knowledge of the correct behaviours and procedure during a natural emergency that occurs at school; ii) perception of the natural risk of the area where the school is located; and iii) general knowledge of the correct behaviours during a natural emergency at school. Three different analyses were carried out on the 5899 filled in questionnaires (820 by personnel and 5079 by students of each school stage) distributed in 27 schools of Tuscany Region (Central Italy): a) school by school; b) questionnaire typology (i.e., different school age); and c) topics (awareness fundamentals i, ii, and iii) and questionnaire typology (i.e., different school age). The results are coherent and show that a) young children’s knowledge is perfectly adequate to their age, b) as the age and responsibilities increase, the awareness and preparation do not increase proportionally, and c) the competences of the school personnel are not sufficient, probably caused by critical issues emerged (i.e., it is not clear where family reunification must take place) and because the wrong hazard perception leads to underestimating the importance of prevention actions and disaster education and. This last outcome turns out to be unexpected. These questionnaires are a suitable, quick, easy and low-cost tool, even if considered separately from the GSC method. The school head-masters or the local and national educational offices actually could use them a) to evaluate the geo-hydrological and seismic risk knowledge and awareness of students, professors and school personnel; b) to project and design actions needed to improve the school-resilience; c) to verify the goodness of the activities developed at point b); and d) as an educational tool to improve the disaster education

Clinical global impression-severity score as a reliable measure for routine evaluation of remission in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders

Aims: This study aimed to compare the performance of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) symptom severity criteria established by the Remission in Schizophrenia Working Group (RSWG) with criteria based on Clinical Global Impression (CGI) severity score. The 6-month duration criterion was not taken into consideration. Methods: A convenience sample of 112 chronic psychotic outpatients was examined. Symptomatic remission was evaluated according to RSWG severity criterion and to a severity criterion indicated by the overall score obtained at CGI-Schizophrenia (CGI-SCH) rating scale (≤3) (CGI-S). Results: Clinical remission rates of 50% and 49.1%, respectively, were given by RSWG and CGI-S, with a significant level of agreement between the two criteria in identifying remitted and non-remitted cases. Mean scores at CGI-SCH and PANSS scales were significantly higher among remitters, independent of the remission criteria adopted. Measures of cognitive functioning were largely independent of clinical remission evaluated according to both RSWG and CGI-S. When applying RSWG and CGI-S criteria, the rates of overall good functioning yielded by Personal and Social Performance scale (PSP) were 32.1% and 32.7%, respectively, while the mean scores at PSP scale differed significantly between remitted and non-remitted patients, independent of criteria adopted. The proportion of patients judged to be in a state of well-being on Social Well-Being Under Neuroleptics-Short Version scale (SWN-K) were, respectively, 66.1% and 74.5% among remitters according to RSWG and CGI-S; the mean scores at the SWN scale were significantly higher only among remitters according to CGI-S criteria. Conclusions: CGI severity criteria may represent a valid and user-friendly alternative for use in identifying patients in remission, particularly in routine clinical practic

Geo-hydrological and seismic risk awareness at school: Emergency preparedness and risk perception evaluation

One of the targets of the Sendai Framework is to reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and the disruption of basic services, particularly in educational facilities, and to develop their resilience. To assess the geo-hydrological and seismic risk awareness in schools in Tuscany (Italy), ad hoc questionnaires were set up. These questionnaires focused on the knowledge of the correct behaviours and procedures during an emergency as well as risk awareness and perception. These questionnaires were different for each school age (from 3 to 19 years old) and were even conceived as a didactic instrument. We distributed 5899 in total (820 to the school staff and 5079 to the students of each school stage), and the analysis shows that, a) as age and responsibilities increase, geo-hydrological and seismic risk awareness and preparation do not increase proportionally, which is almost inadequate for the staff, and b) there is a disconnect between the school evacuation plans and the city civil protection plan. The proposed questionnaires were found to be a good instrument for both disaster education (to increase and improve the level of awareness) and school-resilience evaluation (not only within the Geohazard Safety Classification method) to plan further action and improve it. Therefore, the present study suggests priorities for future school-based emergency management efforts, i.e., to increase school resilience and develop a resilience culture in the community. It is necessary to improve the dissemination of information on the local geo-hydrological and seismic hazards and ensure a link among the different emergency plans