Attention and concentration levels of nurses working in emergency service

The aim of this study was to evaluate the attention and concentration levels of nurses working in the emergency departments of four public hospitals affıliated with the provincial health directorate. The number of nurses to be included in the study was determined as 37 by power analysis and the study was completed with 49 nurses. Necessary permissions were obtained from the ethics committee, the institution where the study will be conducted and the nurses before the research. Data were collected with a questionnaire containing 33 questions about some characteristics of nurses and d2 Attention Test. The d2 attention test provides a timed measurement of selective attention. In this study, scoring about total matter-error (TN-E), concentration performance (KP) and error percentage (E%) from the frequently used lower dimensions of d2 attention test were used to determine selective attention. Obtained data were evaluated with frequency distribution, significance test of difference between two means, one way analysis of variance, Levene test, multiple comparison test. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the mean values of CP, TN-E and% E before and after work (p <0.05). Accordingly, the mean post-shift error rates (E%) increase, concentration performance (CP) and selective attention (TN-E) decrease. In line with these findings, it was observed that the error rate increased during the work in the emergency department, the level of attention and concentration decreased. For this reason the risk of accident and medical malpractice could increase, and consequently the personnel could harm themselves and the patients and recommended to take the necessary measures.