Analyzing Nurses’ Responsibilities in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Using SHERPA and SPAR-H Techniques

Background: Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a critical unit in terms of nursing care with a high risk of error incidence. Objectives: This research aimed at determining the type of nursing task mistake, the risk level of the nurse’s duties, and assessing the probability of human error in the duties of the nurse. Methods: This research was a case study. The location of NICU research was Alavi and Bouali Hospitals in Ardabil University of Medical Sciences in 2018. The study was performed using HTA, SHERPA and SPAR-H methods. Results: Having analyzed the occupational hierarchy, 17 main tasks and 35 subtasks were identified and studied in NICUs. Among 156 error cases, 43.59% were action errors (highest frequency) and 8.97% were selection errors (lowest frequency). The most common errors in terms of the type of task and probability of errors were “air and respiratory ventilation”, “thermal and respiratory monitoring”, “examination, evaluation and control of the newborn’s pain”, and “administering drugs”. Conclusions: The factors affecting performance such as time, psychological and physical stress, workload, work complexity, mental effort, experience and education, instruction, ergonomics principles, work planning, safety culture, management policy, and organizational support had the greatest impact on the probability of nurse errors.