Adaptation of the subjective mental workload scale in peruvian nurses

Introduction: Mental workload is a set of actions that cause stress in human beings, this may be produced by the high demand in information processing to which nurses are subjected as they have multiple functions to perform during their workday and this can cause alteration in behavior that leads to deterioration in health and quality of life. Objective: To validate the hypothetical factorial structure of the Subjective Mental Workload Scale in nursing professionals who attend oncology patients. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study of instrument validation in which 140 nurses working in Lima hospitals participated. The confirmatory factor analysis technique was used using the principal components method and varimax rotation and Cronbach's alpha to determine reliability. Results: a version of the Subjective Mental Workload scale was obtained, with 20 items and 5 aspects (factors): cognitive demands and complexity of the task, Characteristics of the task, Temporal organization, Work rhythm, Consequences for health. The Conbrach alpha of the scale is 0.7. Likewise, the parallel components method and the Kaiser- Meyer- Olkin normalization (KMO), obtaining a value of 0.7128, with a pyloric correlation matrix constructed by 18 items and a Bartlett's test= 916.2, gl = 153, p < 0.001. Therefore, the instrument indicates good internal consistency. Conclusions: It is suggested that a 3-factor structure (Health Consequences, Cognitive Demands and Task Characteristics and Temporal Organization) be incorporated in the mental workload scale in order to achieve a comprehensive and accurate assessment of this problem