J Nurs Acad Soc.  1990 Aug;20(2):214-226.

Influence of Stress Exprience on Change of Attention

• Choi NH
• Lee NH
• Kim HS

Abstract

For a man to maintain attention, he needs to keep a certain level of arousal. An inordinate increase or decrease in the level of arousal eventually has a negative influence on attention. Precedent research has shown that the degree of attention changes when an experience of stress is related to anxiety resulting in a rise in arousal. This research was done to examine this hypothesis by looking at the 27 female students, 14 of whom had failed in the annual examination. The results of the investigation are as follows ; The stress of failure in the examination was seen to raise the level of physiological arousal. Although pulse and electromyography showed no significant change, further inquiries should be made based on other types of methodology. In spite of the rise of arousal, the performance of selective task was degraded. This suggests those students failed to give moderate attention to given information for that kind of task. But the exact reason of that failure was not identified : that is it was difficult decide whether they gave too much attention to the anxiety brought about by stress. Performance of integral tasks, however, did not show any degradation. Judging from these results, stress seems to exert significant influence on attention in the selection of the appropriate information among the various potions given. This offers an important hint in relation to the health care situation where nursing information is offered. Clients who receive nursing information in stressful situations may have difficulty in separating and selecting this helpful information from other options which they have acquired through their life experience. The content and terminology of nursing information may be strange and unintelligible to clients, although they are quite familiar and distinct to nurses. So, it is desirable for nurses to give, in addition and at the same time when nursing information is given, some certain related information as devices for selection, instead of merely giving nursing informations as such. So far it is not clear whether the concept of information processing theory can be suitably applied to nursing. However, it is obvious, according to this research, that the quality of attention is disturbed in the stress situation. This is why further inquiries should be made into attention in practical nursing situation.

MeSH Terms

Arousal
*Attention
Humans
Nursing Care
Patient Education as Topic
Stress, Psychological/*physiopathology