Assessing the Link between Nurses’ Proficiency and Situational Awareness in Neonatal Care Practice Using an Eye Tracker: An Observational Study Using a Simulator

Nurses are expected to depend on a wide variety of visually available pieces of patient information to understand situations. Thus, we assumed a relationship between nurses’ skills and their gaze trajectories. An observational study using a simulator was conducted to analyze gaze during neonatal care practice using eye tracking. We defined the face, thorax, and abdomen of the neonate, the timer, and the pulse oximeter as areas of interest (AOIs). We compared the eye trajectories for respiration and heart rate assessment between 7 experienced and 13 novice nurses. There were no statistically significant differences in the time spent on each AOI for breathing or heart rate confirmation. However, in novice nurses, we observed a significantly higher number of instances of gazing at the thorax and abdomen. The deviation in the number of instances of gazing at the face was also significantly higher among novice nurses. These results indicate that experienced and novice nurses differ in their gaze movements during situational awareness. These objective and quantitative differences in gaze trajectories may help to establish new educational tools for less experienced nurses.