The international and national response team faces many challenges during a complex humanitarian emergency. These include difficult organization, an unprepared national disaster plan, and a disrupted political system. Previous studies showed a reactive approach in earlier disasters in Saudi Arabia and the need for greater involvement of health professionals in disaster management. As a result, several medical education and training institutes began to introduce courses which were mainly about Major Incidents Response, but with less attention to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief.

The course provides Basic Principles in Complex Humanitarian Emergency for healthcare providers in the kingdom and is focused on the aspect of community awareness for disaster and humanitarian relief.

The interactive competencies-based course in Basic Principles of Complex Humanitarian Emergency was implemented. The course was designed by 5 experts in disaster medicine and humanitarian relief and was piloted over five days at officers club of Minister of Interior in Riyadh, sponsored by King Fahd Security College. The participants (n=30) were from different health disciplines. They completed the pre- and post-tests and presented three pilot workshops for disaster community awareness.

The overall scores were 44.19% for the pre-test and 62.85% for the post-test (Wilcoxon test for paired sample: z = 3.729, p<0.001). There were no significant statistical differences among professions of healthcare providers for both pre- and post-tests.

Delivering competencies-based course in Basic Principles of Complex Humanitarian Emergency for health care providers can help in the improvement of knowledge and skills for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in Saudi Arabia, which is important for disaster preparedness augmentation in the kingdom. The next course for the same group may be recommended for achieving the level that will train them to participate in the National Disaster Assistance team.