Evaluation of Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) effectiveness for mental workload assessment in nurses

Background: Mental workload is one of the factors that influence individuals’ performance in the work environment as well as their efficiency and productivity. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) for mental workload in nurses. Materials and Methods: This study was descriptive and cross-sectional conducted on 75 nurses. For assessment of mental workload, first NASA task load index (NASA-TLX) and then RSME were measured. After from data gathering, the data were analyzed using SPSS, descriptive statistics, Student’s independent t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation test. Results: The results of the assessment workload using RSME and NASA-TLX index of nurses showed that nurses' workload was high. Pearson correlation test regression coefficient showed a good correlation between scores of RSME and NASA-TLX index (r = 0.72) (r2 = 0.51). Also there was no significant association between age and work experience with mental workload score in RMSE (P = 0.09) (P = 0.08) and NASA-TLX index (P = 0.08) (P = 0.06). Student’s t-test showed that no significant relationship was observed between sex and scores of RMSE (P = 0.08) and NASA-TLX index (P = 0.07). Conclusions: The results of this study showed that RMSE is a good method for assessing mental workload and there was acceptable correlation with NASA-TLX valid indices. RMSE index can be used to assess the mental workload.