Investigating the Relationship between Nurses' Mental Workload and the Quality of Care Services in the Intensive Care Unit

Mental workload of nurses increases their fatigue, and result in adverse consequences for patients. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between nurseschr('39') mental workload and the quality of care services in the intensive care unit (ICU).

This descriptive-correlation study was conducted in 2019 in Zanjan. In this study, NASA-TLX tool with a score of zero to 100 was used to assess the mental workload of nurses and mental workload of 38 ICU nurses was assessed 138 times. Also, the quality of cares was observed in 300 patients using a researcher-made checklist.   

the mean mental workload of nurses was 81.53±0.987. The average score of care quality out of 100 scores was 70.28±11.06. Among the mean scores of care dimensions, the emergency measures was lower than other dimensions and poor performance level. But in other cases, patient care scores were above 50, indicating good or excellent quality of care. There was no statistically significant relationship between nurseschr('39') mental workload and their quality of care.

According to the results of this study, mental workload of ICU nurses was high. The quality of nursing care seems to be poorly related to the nurses’ mental workload. Therefore, it is recommended to investigate the reasons for the diminution the quality of care with qualitative studies.