Multitasking challenges faced by nurses are compounded by a lack of clear criteria for planning the order of nursing tasks, with the responsibility left to individual nurses. Systematizing the order of nursing tasks could facilitate the development of support tools, and appropriate education could reduce the burden on nurses. However, knowledge about systematizing task implementation order is limited. As a first step toward addressing this gap, we hypothesized that task perceptions differ between novice and experienced nurses. We therefore aimed to clarify experience-based differences in task perceptions and thought processes, as well as to identify the criteria that novice nurses use when prioritizing tasks. We surveyed nurses working in general wards. The survey included questions on 115 nursing tasks, focusing on task time, difficulty level, priority, and information used to determine execution. Valid responses were obtained from 55 nurses. When comparing nursing tasks between novice and experienced nurses, several tasks demonstrated statistically significant differences in task time, difficulty, and priority. Difficulty and priority showed a positive correlation―stronger among experienced nurses―whereas no significant difference was observed in priority and task time. Compared with experienced nurses, novice nurses tended to underestimate task time, assign more polarized difficulty levels, rely primarily on time constraints when determining task priorities, and depend on a single source of information when performing tasks. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding the complexity inherent in nursing task prioritization and highlight the challenges in developing a support tool for novice nurses.
Iwamoto et al. (Thu,) studied this question.