Comparing novice and expert nurses in analysing electrocardiographs (ecgs) containing critical diagnostic information: An eye tracking study of the development of complex nursing visual cognitive skills

Abstract

Nurses operate in dynamic health-care environments. They are often in positions where they are required to undertake rapid diagnosis, provide emergency health-care responses and make instant risk assessments. Often, these activities occur in real-time, high-risk health-care environments and emergency situations in conditions that can be characterised as time pressured, complex and ambiguous. Nurses need to have high levels of understanding of a range of diagnostic patient information, presented in multiple visual formats such as X-ray, electrocardiograph (ECG) and other common diagnostic data presented in specialised diagnostic formats. Analysing ECGs and interpreting their diagnostic information is a highly complex cognitive activity. Significant amounts of physiological data, displayed in ECGs, have to be processed, understood and analysed from complex stimuli, even if these stimuli are presented in static format.