Dataset Information

A systematic review of the psychological literature on interruption and its patient safety implications.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To understand the complex effects of interruption in healthcare.

Materials and methods

As interruptions have been well studied in other domains, the authors undertook a systematic review of experimental studies in psychology and human-computer interaction to identify the task types and variables influencing interruption effects.

Results

63 studies were identified from 812 articles retrieved by systematic searches. On the basis of interruption profiles for generic tasks, it was found that clinical tasks can be distinguished into three broad types: procedural, problem-solving, and decision-making. Twelve experimental variables that influence interruption effects were identified. Of these, six are the most important, based on the number of studies and because of their centrality to interruption effects, including working memory load, interruption position, similarity, modality, handling strategies, and practice effect. The variables are explained by three main theoretical frameworks: the activation-based goal memory model, prospective memory, and multiple resource theory.

Discussion

This review provides a useful starting point for a more comprehensive examination of interruptions potentially leading to an improved understanding about the impact of this phenomenon on patient safety and task efficiency. The authors provide some recommendations to counter interruption effects.

Conclusion

The effects of interruption are the outcome of a complex set of variables and should not be considered as uniformly predictable or bad. The task types, variables, and theories should help us better to identify which clinical tasks and contexts are most susceptible and assist in the design of information systems and processes that are resilient to interruption.

SUBMITTER: Li SY

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3240749 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

A systematic review of the psychological literature on interruption and its patient safety implications.

Li Simon Y W SY Magrabi Farah F Coiera Enrico E

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA 20110923 1

<h4>Objective</h4>To understand the complex effects of interruption in healthcare.<h4>Materials and methods</h4>As interruptions have been well studied in other domains, the authors undertook a systematic review of experimental studies in psychology and human-computer interaction to identify the task types and variables influencing interruption effects.<h4>Results</h4>63 studies were identified from 812 articles retrieved by systematic searches. On the basis of interruption profiles for generic ...[more]

PMID: 21946236

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Project description:BackgroundThe amount of scientific literature available is often overwhelming, making it difficult for researchers to have a good overview of the literature and to see relations between different developments. Visualisation techniques based on bibliometric data are helpful in obtaining an overview of the literature on complex research topics, and have been applied here to the topic of patient safety (PS).MethodsOn the basis of title words and citation relations, publications in the period 2000-2010 related to PS were identified in the Scopus bibliographic database. A visualisation of the most frequently cited PS publications was produced based on direct and indirect citation relations between publications. Terms were extracted from titles and abstracts of the publications, and a visualisation of the most important terms was created. The main PS-related topics studied in the literature were identified using a technique for clustering publications and terms.ResultsA total of 8480 publications were identified, of which the 1462 most frequently cited ones were included in the visualisation. The publications were clustered into 19 clusters, which were grouped into three categories: (1) magnitude of PS problems (42% of all included publications); (2) PS risk factors (31%) and (3) implementation of solutions (19%). In the visualisation of PS-related terms, five clusters were identified: (1) medication; (2) measuring harm; (3) PS culture; (4) physician; (5) training, education and communication. Both analysis at publication and term level indicate an increasing focus on risk factors.ConclusionsA bibliometric visualisation approach makes it possible to analyse large amounts of literature. This approach is very useful for improving one's understanding of a complex research topic such as PS and for suggesting new research directions or alternative research priorities. For PS research, the approach suggests that more research on implementing PS improvement initiatives might be needed.

Dataset Information

A systematic review of the psychological literature on interruption and its patient safety implications.

Objective

Materials and methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Publications

A systematic review of the psychological literature on interruption and its patient safety implications.

Similar Datasets

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