Protecting the mental state of health care workers

Nurses help millions of people cope with their physical and mental health. But who guarantees nurses’ health care? , aims to better understand the systemic causes of health care provider mental health problems, such as burnout. .

Sasangohar’s research focuses on applications. human factor Engineering methods for design, development and evaluation complex system such as healthcare.His latest research used an innovative and unconventional method to assess how workloads and other factors strain intensive care unit nurse‘Cognitive and triggering stress events can lead to burnout over time.

Sasangohar’s multidisciplinary research team (including researchers with backgrounds in clinical, psychology, and industrial engineering) uses non-intrusive wearable eye-tracking and physiological monitoring technologies to collect real-world data. did. Participants in this study were registered nurses in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Houston Methodist Hospital. Nurses wore glasses throughout their 12-hour shift. physiological response Stress to stress was assessed over several shifts. The data provided an objective description of the tasks performed, identified potential distractions, and accurately tracked gaze behavior. Sasangohar said this is the key to understanding mental load.

“We were interested in documenting what external triggers or events lead to stressful events or high workloads and how. mental health “We were also interested in the difference between day and night shifts in terms of physical and cognitive load and stress,” said Sasangohar.

This study documents several important relationships between stress and physiological correlates. Heart rate and skin temperature, and eye indices such as fixed number of eyes, gaze entropy, and pupil diameter. One of his interesting findings was that there was no significant difference in workload between day and night shifts. Night shifts had relatively less social and team-related activities, but drowsiness may have made the workload comparable to day shifts. may pave the way for further research to support

“Eye-tracking data collected across shifts of more than 20 nurses offers a unique opportunity to understand the context of care and has implications beyond mental health,” Sasangohar said. said. “For example, the data can be used to train tasks and teamwork, improve quality, analyze workflows, etc.”

This research Human Factors: Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Sasangohar’s next step is to use some of his team’s recent advances in objective measures of cognitive and physical stress to develop remote and continuous stress monitoring and self-management tools for nurses. design and evaluate.

“Healthcare is one of the most complex and challenging work environments that we all engage in and benefit from at some point,” he said. “The COVID-19 pandemic Health care A healthcare provider, mental health issues are on the rise at alarming rates. I am passionate about this vulnerable population and am happy that my research may improve their well-being.”