Management of the dead in disasters: knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices among a group of army soldiers in Galle District, Sri Lanka

Udalamaththa Gamage Gihan Chaminda^1*, Janaki Warushahennadi² 

¹Department of Health Services, Southern Province; ²Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna

*Correspondence: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Background: Improper management of the dead in disasters can hinder the identification, leads to loss of important forensic evidence and affects the dignity of the dead. Army soldiers play a vital role in dead body management in disasters. 

Objective: To describe the knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices on management of the dead in disasters among army soldiers in Galle district, Sri Lanka.

Methods: This descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in 2017 using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire in two selected army camps in Galle district. Based on the percentage of correct responses, army soldiers were classified into three groups denoting their overall knowledge using pre-determined cut-off values. Those who had a score of  >70% and <50% were categorized as having a “good” and “poor” level of overall knowledge respectively while those with a score of 50-70% were considered as having a “moderate” level of knowledge.

Results: The entire study population of 188 army soldiers (N=188) was included in this study. A majority (61.2%, n=115) had a moderate level and 32.4% (n=61) had a good level of overall knowledge. In particular, knowledge on wearing face masks by dead body recovery teams (8%), spraying disinfectants to dead bodies (30.9%) and use of ambulances to transport the deceased (34%) was poor. Respectively 21.8% and 52.1% believed that funeral rites are not important and dead bodies of foreign nationals should be treated better than locals. Only 12.8% believed that there's no need to respect dead bodies as they are dead. A majority (69.1%) had reported that they had engaged in dead body management in disasters as army soldiers and 59% had reported that they had used gloves and boots in dead body recovery process.

Conclusions & recommendations: Even though a majority had either moderate or good level of overall knowledge, deficiencies of knowledge in certain aspects of management of the dead in disasters were evident. A majority had more favourable attitudes in many aspects of management of the dead in disasters. There is a space for improvement in certain practices of dead body management.

Key words: dead body management, disasters, army soldiers, Sri Lanka