2022 Volume 58 Issue 4 Pages 186-194
The purpose of this study is to clarify the visual information that expert nurses selectively take in to understand the situation in mechanically ventilated patients. The experiment was conducted with eight advanced beginner nurses and eight expert nurses from a department of intensive care. They observed videos of two scenes, one at resting state and the other during changing state, reproduced with a simulated patient on a ventilator. For the analysis, seven gaze areas were set on the image. Gaze duration, gaze number, and eye movement frequency in each area were calculated, and between-group and within-group comparisons were made for each scene. The results showed that the experts gazed at patient’s face, ventilator screen, and biometric monitor longer and more frequently in both situations. In particular, they gazed at the patient’s face significantly more often than the advanced beginners during changing state, and they also significantly more eye movement between the patient’s face and ventilator screen. These results suggest that the expert nurses grasped the patient’s condition by focusing information from the patient’s face, the ventilator screen, and the monitor, and by relating the information from the patient’s face and the ventilator screen.
