The Influence of the Perceived Workload on Performance During High Fidelity Simulation in Surgical Specialty ( Including Anesthesia) and Nurses

High-fidelity simulation (HFS) is a learning method extensively used for training of surgical specialty (including anesthesia) and nurses. It has a beneficial effect on knowledge of algorithms, team working, early warning scores, and communication. Various skills can be learned using a standardized simulation programs.

The complexity of instructional design may produce cognitive overload, high stress level and anxiety. This may increase fatigue, facilitate errors, and is associated with inferior task performance which may impede memorization of learned skills resulting in inefficient learning/simulation failure. Subjectively reported scales can accurately identify the level of perceived workload and mental demand in individuals during simulation tasks. One example is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-TLX - the most accepted subjective measure of human workload in various industries including medicine.

Surgical specialty (including anesthesia) and nurses training curriculum in Lyon, France, includes several HFS scenarios with a large panel of critical events. The investigators aim to evaluate the effect of burden of workload and stress perceived by surgical specialty (including anesthesia) residents and nurses during HFS on the learning performance, and to grade different learning scenarios by their difficulty.