Estimation of the psychological load in the performance of nurses' work based on subjective fatigue symptoms.

PURPOSE The performance of ergonomic analyses for workplaces is justified by the fact that safe and comfortable working conditions for employees are required. The obtained results may be used to facilitate the implementation of organizational changes in health care centres. A complex assessment of occupational load is not always possible. In this paper it is limited to one factor, constituting the psychological component. The aim of this paper is to assess the psychological fatigue of nursing personnel. MATERIAL AND METHODS The only indicator analysed in the study concerns the activity of nurses working on two or three shift schedules on two clinical wards. To measure psychological fatigue one of the available scales was used, i.e. the Japanese questionnaire. In total 108 subjective survey records of fatigue were obtained. RESULTS The obtained results show that overall activity decrease was between small and average. On the 12-hour shift schedule this decrease amounted to 29.34% (cardiology) and 34.77% (surgical), whereas on the 8-hour shift schedule it was 24.58% and 17.36%. CONCLUSIONS With a more significant activity decrease recorded for the 12-hour shift schedule, it should be assumed that the quality and efficiency of work performance on 8-hour shifts is higher and the risk of error decreased.