Abstract: Objective: To develop the evaluation index system of the head nurse's capacity to respond to public health emergencies, and to provide insights for the evaluation and training of corresponding ability. Methods: According to the theory of PPRR (Prevention, Preparation, Response, Recovery) risk management model and guided by the International Council of Nurses disaster nursing ability framework (version 2.0) the first draft of the evaluation index system, for the emergency response capacity of head nurses to cope with public health emergencies was formed through literature analysis, semi-structure interview and discussion in the research group; the Delphi method was applied to conduct 2 round consultation with 28 experts and the hierarchical analysis and average distribution method was used to determine the weights of each indicator for each level. Results: Formation of a system of indicators for evaluating the emergency response capacity of nurse leaders in the event of public health emergencies, comprising 4 first-level indicators, 18 second-level indicators, and 62 third-level indicators. The valid return rate of two rounds of expert consultation was 93.9% and 90.3%, the expert authority coefficient was 0.867 and 0.855 respectively, and Kendall's w of the index was 0.104-0.165 and 0.112-0.229, respectively (P<0.05). Conclusion: The evaluation index system of the head nurse's capacity to cope with public health emergencies developed in this study provides a tool for the evaluation of the emergency response ability of clinical head nurses and a insight for the optimization of corresponding training mode.

Key words: public health emergency; emergency capacity; head nurses; Delphi method