ABSTRACT Introduction: Disasters occur daily all over the world with different types, shaping extreme public health threats and lead to a huge impact in terms of deaths and injuries, destruction to infrastructure and facilities, and loss of livelihoods. when disaster strikes, nurses play vital roles. They act as first responders, triage officers and caregivers, service coordinators, as well as information or education providers. Thus, nurses must have the fundamental disaster competencies, as well as sufficient self-efficacy to be able to manage and cope with stress levels during disaster. Aim: to investigate disaster nursing competence, anticipatory disaster stress, and coping self-efficacy as predictors of motivation for disaster engagement among nurses at Zagazig University Hospitals. Study design: Descriptive correlational design was used. Sample: A proportionate stratified random sample of 400 staff nurses was used Tools of data collection: The Disaster Nursing Competence Questionnaire, Anticipatory Disaster Stress Questionnaire, Motivation for Disaster Engagement Questionnaire, and The Coping Self-Efficacy Scale. Results: 57.30% of the studied nurses have low perception level of disaster nursing competence, 50.50 %have moderate perception level of anticipatory disaster stress. 69.50 % have low coping self-efficacy level. While, 46.30 % have moderate motivation for disaster engagement. Conclusion: disaster nursing competence, anticipatory disaster stress, and coping self-efficacy were significant predictors of motivation for disaster engagement among studied nurses. Recommendations: Healthcare administrators should build strong program/courses for disaster preparedness and management including practical training, disaster drills, and simulation to prepare nursing with the necessary knowledge and skills for disaster management.