Field Hospital in Disasters: A Systematic Review

Background: Field hospitals (FH) can be mobile or fixed. The main goal of FHs is providing health care and preventing injuries caused by disasters or providing emergency medical operations. However, preparing a safe and fast-erupting structure and facility is very important. Objectives: In this systematic review study, field hospitals are reviewed. Methods: In the present study, a systematic review was performed following the PRISMA guideline. To identify the articles, MEDLINE, web of science, Google scholar, PubMed, Persian journals and databases were searched to find related papers. Results: After full text screening as the final screening step, 20 papers were entered in the study. Findings showed that structures used for establishing a FH are usually tents, using vehicles (trucks and buses), pre-fabricated steel, and concrete structures. The FHs were used for war and earthquake disasters. Conex, tent, steel, and concrete structure are the most used structures for FH in wars, while tents are the most common structure used for natural disasters. Conclusions: The present study reviewed available reports on FH to collect useful data that should be focused on establishment of an FH suitable for a disaster. Furthermore, this study provides a list of the most important indexes that must be considered in proposing a type of FH. Tent structure was the most common structure for the establishment of FHs.