Key result
Board-certified anesthesiologists achieve ~2-fold higher task accuracy than residents under high workload.
Why the study?
Does clinical experience level affect the ability of anesthesiologists to manage high mental workload during simulated induction of general anesthesia?
Does clinical experience level affect the ability of anesthesiologists to manage high mental workload during simulated induction of general anesthesia?
High mental workload during critical clinical events disproportionately impairs the performance of less experienced anesthesiologists.
Experience buffers secondary-task performance under high simulated workload; leaves open whether training mitigates resident vulnerability in practice.
The aim of this study was to reveal the effect of anesthesiologist's mental workload during induction of general anesthesia. Twenty-two participants were categorized into anesthesiology residents (RA group, n = 13) and board certified anesthesiologists (CA group, n = 9). Subjects participated in three simulated scenarios (scenario A: baseline, scenario B: simple addition tasks, and scenario C: combination of simple addition tasks and treatment of unexpected arrhythmia). We used simple two-digit integer additions every 5 seconds as a secondary task. Four kinds of key actions were also evaluated in each scenario. In scenario C, the correct answer rate was significantly higher in the CA versus the RA group (RA: 0.370 ± 0.050 versus CA: 0.736 ± 0.051, p < 0.01, 95% CI -0.518 to -0.215) as was the score of key actions (RA: 2.7 ± 1.3 versus CA: 4.0 ± 0.00, p = 0.005). In a serious clinical situation, anesthesiologists might not be able to adequately perform both the primary and secondary tasks. This tendency is more apparent in young anesthesiologists.
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Sato et al. (2016) studied Anesthesiologists (Residents vs Board Certified) (n=22). Board certified anesthesiologist status vs. Anesthesiology resident status was evaluated on Correct answer rate of secondary math tasks in a high mental workload scenario (scenario C) (95% CI -0.518 to -0.215, p=<0.01). Board-certified anesthesiologists maintained a significantly higher correct answer rate on secondary tasks during a simulated high-workload scenario compared to residents (0.736 vs 0.370, p<0.01).
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