RELATIONSHIP AMONG SUBJECTIVE MENTAL WORKLOAD, EXPERIENCE, AND EDUCATION OF CARDIOVASCULAR CRITICAL CARE REGISTERED NURSES.
Contributors: University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 178
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Psychometrics.
Description: Subjective mental workload was introduced for study in nursing emanating from a concern among nurses that current measures of nursing workload fail to capture the cognitive demands of patient care. Subjective mental workload is conceptually based on attention load, or the amount of attention that is required versus amount available to cognitively process work information. Information processing theory suggested a relationship between past learning and subjective mental workload; that is, as work becomes more familiar, subjective mental workload decreases. Subjective mental workload had been measured in other populations, but had not been studied in nursing.

The purposes of the study were to: (1) examine the validity and reliability of NASA TLX for use among cardio-vascular critical care nurses; and, (2) examine subjective mental workload and its relation to specialty experience, general experience, and education of registered nurses in cardiovascular critical care units. A three-stage study was conducted. Initially, twenty nursing experts from the eastern U.S. were surveyed to determine the content validity of NASA TLX for use among critical care nurses. A pilot study of twenty nurses was conducted to test proposed methodology. A descriptive level correlation design was used in the principal study which was conducted across four medical centers in the southeastern U.S. Seventy nurses were randomly selected and stratified by unit (CCU, CVICU). Subjects in both the pilot and principal studies were licensed registered nurses, employed as staff nurses and routinely assigned to care for adult cardiovascular critical care patients.

Suggestions made by the nursing experts resulted in a content valid instrument for measuring the subjective mental workload of critical care nurses. Cronbach alpha was assessed at 0.82. Subjects reported an average subjective mental workload of 4.3 following the first four hours of patient care. Findings from the principal study suggested no statistically significant relationship between or among specialty experience, general experience, education, and subjective mental workload. Post hoc analysis revealed significant relationships between subjective mental workload and patient diagnosis, volume of assigned patients, and number of days off from work.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-07, Section: B, page: 3550.

Thesis (D.S.N.)--UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM, 1993.

School code: 0005.
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