Fatigue-Recovery Simulation Model to Analyze the Impact of Nursing Activities on Fatigue Level in an Intensive Care Unit

The main purpose of the current study is to create a simulation model capable of estimating nurses' fatigue levels during a daily shift in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The model has been statistically tested and validated by comparing the time study observation data. According to the simulation results, the average fatigue level of ICU nurses was 62.7% ∼ 63.6% in a normal workload condition. When the ICU nurses experienced a high workload of regular primary care in the model, the average fatigue level was increased by 5.5% ∼ 11.7% compared to the normal condition. For peer support, the fatigue level was increased by 5.7% ∼ 7.3%. The main contribution of this work is that the model could provide a new way to estimate the nurses' fatigue levels in different workload conditions and establish specific nurse-patient ratios dynamically to improve patient care in a medical ICU.