**1. Introduction**

The increasing incidences of public health emergencies and disasters necessitate global awareness, multiagency collaboration, and emergency system readiness to respond [1]. Major incidents and disasters (MIDs) might be inevitable, but they can be mitigated by performing an appropriate risk and vulnerability assessment (RVA) as the foundation for creating a disaster response plan [2]. Risks and vulnerabilities causing a public health emergency or an MID may vary in different countries; however, the current coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has clearly demonstrated how a local outbreak can influence the spread of a disease and how it can result in lessons learned for global benefits. A response

plan targets all possible risks, not only to enable countries to act based on their resources but also to share knowledge and compare their outcome to improve their response. Global threats can be man-made or natural (e.g., terrorism, pandemics and disasters). Vulnerabilities are the weaknesses that can be exploited by threats, and they can be dimensions which are either missing, such as strategic leadership, or of poor quality, such as the lack of proper education [3]. Although all parts of a healthcare system should be ready to manage an MID, hospital preparedness is particularly important since hospitals should serve not only the a ffected people but also other emergency or elective cases in need of help simultaneously. Therefore, a well-prepared hospital needs an RVA-based response plan and should facilitate educational initiatives to build up a pool of well-educated and skilled sta ff [4].

Because of their numbers and distribution, nurses are the largest group in the healthcare domain who face MIDs, and their knowledge and level of preparedness play a crucial role in the pre-, peri-, and post-MID periods [5]. In previous studies, about 80% of Philippine nurses were found to be neither fully prepared nor knowledgeable about disaster preparedness and response, and they lacked an awareness of existing managemen<sup>t</sup> protocols [6]. Furthermore, 65.4% of Pakistani nurses had theoretical knowledge related to disaster plans, drills, and preparedness but very little practical knowledge about MID managemen<sup>t</sup> [7]. Finally, in Egypt and China, the majority of nurses had unsatisfactory levels of information and knowledge about disaster managemen<sup>t</sup> and needed to join specific training programmes [8,9]. These studies reveal the importance of theoretical and practical dimensions in nurses' preparedness.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) engages nearly 80% of the Arabian Peninsula, and its desert area accommodates the largest continuous sand desert in the world [10]. The KSA is a disaster-prone country with varying grades of emergencies. It has one of the world's highest mortality rates in motor vehicle crashes [11]. Terrorist incidents such as bombings have resulted in periodic internal instability as well as shifts in regional and international political dynamics [12]. Mass gatherings (Ramadan and Hajj) are two special events on the Islamic calendar that contribute to overcrowding during prayer performance and other rituals, resulting in numerous incidents [13]. Finally, many cities experience building collapses regularly as a result of mass gatherings, insu fficient building safety, and a lack of control by the authorities, leading to injuries and deaths [14]. Natural disasters, such as flooding, earthquakes, and drought, occur frequently in the KSA. Floods are the most frequently experienced natural event because of unplanned urban development and improper drainage or the low ground of some high-populated areas, such as Jeddah and Mecca, which are surrounded by mountains and are easily a ffected by rainfall, resulting in flooding [15]. These threats make a good case for the KSA's preparedness in MIDs to be studied. One recent study from the KSA on emergency nurses' disaster preparedness showed that 28% of the nurses had inadequate knowledge [16]. The number of participants, however, was small (*n* = 72). Other studies such as the one from Australia have also confirmed these results, showing nurses' confusion about their role in MID managemen<sup>t</sup> and their shortcomings in basic knowledge regarding standard disaster terminology and types of disasters [17]. Altogether, these studies highlight a knowledge gap in the overall preparedness of the nurses to deal with disasters.
