Interruptions of activities experienced by nursing professionals in an intensive care unit

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the interruptions experienced by nursing professionals while undertaking care activities. METHOD: an observational study undertaken in two intensive care units. Two nurses observed 33 nursing professionals for three hours. The data were recorded in real time, using a semistructured instrument. RESULTS: after 99 hours of observation of 739 activities, it was identified that 46.82% were interrupted, resulting in 7.85 interruptions per hour. On average, the interruptions compromised 9.42% of the nursing professionals' worktime. The activities geared towards indirect care of the patient suffered the highest number of interruptions (56.65%), with the nursing records being the activity interrupted most. The principal source of the interruptions was external, coming from the health professionals (51%), and the main causes were those related to the patients (34.70%) and to interpersonal communication (26.47%). CONCLUSION: the activity of nursing suffers a high number of interruptions, mainly caused by the health professionals themselves, indicating that the work environment needs to undergo interventions aiming to reduce the risk of compromising of the professional's performance and to increase the patients' safety.