Relationship between Nurses’ Subjective Workload and Occupational Cognitive Failure in Intensive Care Units

The subjective workload is a significant stressor in nursing profession and the stress can lead to cognitive problems and occupational cognitive failure. However, the relationship between subjective workload and cognitive failure is ambigious. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the relationship between nurses’ Subjective workload and occupational cognitive failure in intensive care units. This analytical cross-sectional research was conducted on 176 nurses working in intensive care units of Rasht medical centers in 2017. Samples were selected using census method. The data collection tools consisted of personal and occupational data, standard questionnaires for subjective workload (NASA-TLX) and occupational cognitive failure (OCFQ). The data analysis was performed by the software of SPSS 21 and descriptive and inferential statistic tests of Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis, Spearman correlation. The majority of samples were female (93.2%) with a mean age of 35.85 ± 7.8, married (71%) and undergraduate (92.2%), ICU (71%), Formal employment (64.2%) with an average work record of 12.21 ± 7. 06 years (86.9%). Mean score and standard deviation for subjective workload was 59.95 ± 16.41 and for occupational cognitive failure 70.31 ± 17.06. There was a significant positive correlation between occupational cognitive failure and subjective workload (r = 0.272, p <0.001). Considering the relationship between subjective workload and cognitive failure, the patient's safety and eventually the quality of care may be improved by designing strategies to reduce the subjective workload and considering its related factors in the planning of human resources employed in intensive care units.