Lived Experiences of Faculty Affected During Floods

The environment is a balance of impacts which can either be positive or negative. One of the negative impacts which can cause a marked disaster to life is flood. A qualitative study was conducted to explore the lived experiences of faculty affected during the floods at selected nursing college in Chennai. Methods: This study was conducted using, a qualitative research design with phenomenological approach at selected nursing College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu- South India. Twelve faculty members who were severely affected during floods were selected through the purposive sampling technique. Data was collected using Open ended, probing and leading questions to explore the lived experiences of faculty through in depth personal interview that facilitated free conversation. Results: Data was analyzed based on the Van Kaam’s methodology. From the collected data six essential themes were developed which were on the following dimensions such as physical dimensions, psychological dimensions, social dimensions, spiritual dimensions, financial dimensions and academic dimensions. The themes, which emerged reflected the need for holistic dimension of disaster care for the faculty affected during flood.

The schools and colleges in Chennai faced difficulties due to floods in December 2015. Educational institutions could not conduct classes. University exams were postponed in many colleges. Faculty members found difficulty in reaching colleges due to flooded roads and restricted transportation due to fuel shortage. Students had undergone physical and psychological problems due to floods (The Hindu 2015). Many Institutions were closed for several days. Inspite of heavy floods and failure of communication system many faculties were concerned about their students and took several steps to safeguard their students and protect them from physical and psychological consequences.
Despite consistent reports on flood effects qualitatively in existing literature, difficulties of faculties have not been seen extensive exploration and still there is a paucity of research on the lived experiences of faculty affected during flood. Hence, the investigators have undertaken this study to explore the lived experiences of faculty affected during flood to understand their perspectives and plan for better future preparations.

Statement of the problem
A Qualitative Study to Assess the Lived Experiences of Faculty Affected during Floods at Selected Nursing College in Chennai.

Objective
• To explore the lived experiences of faculty affected during flood.

METHODS
This study was conducted using, a qualitative research design with phenomenological approach at the selected nursing College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu-South India. Data was collected after obtaining approval from the Institutional review board. Twelve faculties who were severely affected during floods were selected through purposive sampling technique. Data was collected using funnel approach,one to one indepth interview.Interview with the faculty members were audiotaped,transcribed and analysed.
Lived experience refers to the formulated meanings of the profound experience such as feelings, sentiments, perceptions and desires of faculty working in the selected Nursing College and who were severely affected during the flood which occurred in the months of November and December 2015.
Consent was obtained from each faculty members for the study, saturation was reached with the sample size of twelve. Open ended leading questions were used to elicit perceptions related to physical, psychological, social, spiritual, financial and academic dimension of faculty who were affected during the floods of December 2015.
These experiences were audio recorded and transcribed in the form of narratives. The verbatim were transcribed and data coding was done. Analysis of the data was accomplished using Van Kaam's methodology and included 6 major operations that were the guiding principles for data analysis.
These operations are as follows (1) eliciting descriptive expressions (2) identifying common elements (3) eliminating expressions not related to the phenomena (4) formulating a hypothetical definition of the phenomenon (5) checking the hypothetical definition with original descriptions and (6) specifying the structural definition.
Use of this methodology allowed the researchers to more fully describe and analyze the human experience. It provided the researcher an opportunity to explore, in a holistic manner, the emergence of themes and patterns of the lived experiences of the faculty affected during flood. Table 1 depicts all of them lost their valuables and rescue was required for one faculty and 2 of them were found to be away from their home for more than a week. One faculty was rescued from flood using rope and she expressed in her words. ''Inside my house I had water till my knee level and I thought I could move fast and reach a safe place, but due to water logging outside and everywhere around my house, I was not able to move. Finally, I was rescued by using rope. I experienced fear of death, loss of my family members and I got frustrated much by seeing the water logging and tried to walk slowly and safely. I felt very tired because of this shifting, extra burdens and insecure feelings''.

Tab 2 Examples of Significant Statements and Formulated Meanings of Faculty members. (N=12) S.No Themes Significant statements Formulated meanings 1 Physical dimension
Mrs.A expressed that she had common cold and cough. In her words; I had fever,cough, vomiting, and was not able to get out of bed for two days and was preoccupied about our students' health.
Faculty expressed that they had acute health problems such as fever, headache, common cold, vomiting, diarrhoea, fatigue and body pain. She had special prayers with their family.

Financial dimension
Mrs.E was depressed and expressed: to our family, flood was very terrible; we lost old and valuable things, which belong to our family. Those things were very precious which cannot be replaced.
She spent a lot of money on replacing the lost valuable items.

Academic dimension
Mrs.F was worried and preoccupied with the thoughts that nothing should affect the academic success of our students.
She was worried about the continuous leave and incomplete clinical requirements of our students.
The names of the faculty are fictitious and have been changed for the sake of confidentiality. Significant statements of the participants were arranged to ensure common statements formed the themes.
Similar results were obtained in the study conducted by Venkatesan L3 on lived in experiences of nursing personnel in the hospital during floods, the themes which emerged were chaos, reality check, reorganizing, stabilizing and finally planning for the future.