Abstract
The aim of this study is to present the basic datum for the promotion of effectiveness and improvement of nursery tasks, by grasping the situation of operating room nurses tasks and the degree of their fatigue. For these researches, 70 nurses out of the operating rooms of 3 university-affiliated hospitals-two in Seoul and one in Pusan, were chosen at random by a non-probability sampling method. These researches were done from April 14 to April 26 in 1997 by questionairing method. The questionaire was composed of 30 items, which asks the examinees of their physical, mental, and neurosensory symptoms, with 10 items respectively. The reliability of the research instrument was turned out very high with Cronbach's ${\alpha}=.9376$. The datum were electronically processed using Statistics Program for Social Sciences(SPSS). The analysis of datum in this study has a general character, in which the demosociological character and the special ex-officio character was calculated by frequency and percentage. The situation of tasks in operating rooms was calculated by frequency and percentage. The fatigue of operating room nurses was calculated by average and standard deviation. To compare the fatigue with regard to the character of operating room nurse's tasks, t-test and F-test(ANOVA) were used after the character of variations, and the variations at the level of P<.05 which might have some meaning was verified after the fact with Duncan's Multiple Range(DMR). The results of this research are as follows : 1) The nurses working in operating rooms show their fatigue in three fields-in Group I physical symptoms 3.28, in Group III neurosensory symptoms 2.85, and in Group II mental symptoms 2.73, which shows I Dominant type (general type). 2) They complain, in Group I they are "feeling the heavy legs," 3.28 and in Group II they "occasionally forget soon what to do," 3.09. and in Group III, they "feel lumbago," 3.47, which is the highest rate of the three. The highest rate results from the character of their tasks, in which they have to move rapidly the heavy appliances and do their jobs standing many hours, especially wearing heavy radiation protector. 3) As to transportation, subway using group feel the greatest fatigue, 3.18(F=4.315, P=.008). 4) As to department, nurses in the orthopedic's surgery part feel the greatest fatigue, 3.26(F=2.040, P=.050). 5) As to the change of physical symptoms, the group answering that they found physical abnormality after working in operating rooms show the greatest fatigue, 3.12(t=-3.13, P=.003). 6) At to the general circumstances, the group answering that they receive insufficient consideration on their physical abnormality in their department, show the greatest fatigue, 3.10(F=3.200, P=0.47). 7) As to the relation with superior officers, the group answering that their superior officer has an impetuous temperament, show great fatigue, 3.11(F=4.855, P=.011). 8) As to the time of feeling fatigue, the fatigue reaches the highest point 1~2 hours after operations, 3.04(F=2.703, P=.046). 9) When they feel fatigue after scrub nurse duties, they feel the greatest fatigue 2 hours after the duties, 3.09( F=2.841, P=.038). 10) As to the operation instruments, when they use complex instruments borrowing from the outside in addition to the basic instruments, their fatigue becomes the greatest, 3.09(F=7.831, P=.000). 11) As to the kind of operation, when they participate in orthopedic's surgery operations, they feel the greatest fatigue, 3.18(F=4.362, P=.000). With the above results, it is proved that the degree of operating room nurses' fatigue is considerably high. So it may be concluded that the measure for lessening the fatigue should be find immediately, not on the level of personal matters but on the level of hospital nursing administration.