SynthesisJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
A systematic review of the psychological literature on interruption and its patient safety implications.
Synthesis in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Blurred Boundaries at the Bedside: Reframing Problematic Smartphone Use as an Ethical and Organisational Challenge in Nursing Practice.Nursing open · 2026Pooled it
- Uncertainty and decision-making in critical care: lessons from managing COVID-19 ARDS in preparation for the next pandemic.BMJ open respiratory research · 2025Pooled it
- Interruption science as a research field: Towards a taxonomy of interruptions as a foundation for the field.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Pooled it
- Trial
- Interruptions and multitasking in anaesthesia nursing: a prospective observational study of cognitive strain and workflow patterns.BMJ open quality · 2026Observational
- Reading Room Interruptions are Less Disruptive When Using Asynchronous Communication Methods.Journal of imaging informatics in medicine · 2024Observational
- Interruptions in a dental setting and evaluating the efficacy of an intervention: A pilot study.PloS one · 2024Article
- Identifying how GPs spend their time and the obstacles they face: a mixed-methods study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2022Article
- Implementation and experience of an innovative smart patient care system: a cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Nurse's Achilles Heel: Using Big Data to Determine Workload Factors That Impact Near Misses.Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing · 2021Article
- An observational study of distractions in the operating theatre.Anaesthesia · 2021Observational
- Resuming a Dynamic Task Following Increasingly Long Interruptions: The Role of Working Memory and Reconstruction.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Physician Workflow in Two Distinctive Emergency Departments: An Observational Study.Applied clinical informatics · 2021Observational
- For which clinical rules do doctors want decision support, and why? A survey of Dutch general practitioners.Health informatics journal · 2019Article
- Nurses' work with interruptions: an objective model for testing interventions.Health care management science · 2019Article
- Quantifying disruption of workflow by phone calls to the neuroradiology reading room.BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- Task errors by emergency physicians are associated with interruptions, multitasking, fatigue and working memory capacity: a prospective, direct observation study.BMJ quality & safety · 2018Observational
- Quantifying the costs of interruption during diagnostic radiology interpretation using mobile eye-tracking glasses.Journal of medical imaging (Bellingham, Wash.) · 2018Article
- Article
- Can patient safety be improved by reducing the volume of "inappropriate prescribing tasks" handed over to out-of-hours junior doctors?International journal of general medicine · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo understand the complex effects of interruption in healthcare. MATERIALS AND
methodsAs interruptions have been well studied in other domains, the authors undertook a systematic review of experimental studies in psychology and human-computer interaction to identify the task types and variables influencing interruption effects.
results63 studies were identified from 812 articles retrieved by systematic searches. On the basis of interruption profiles for generic tasks, it was found that clinical tasks can be distinguished into three broad types: procedural, problem-solving, and decision-making. Twelve experimental variables that influence interruption effects were identified. Of these, six are the most important, based on the number of studies and because of their centrality to interruption effects, including working memory load, interruption position, similarity, modality, handling strategies, and practice effect. The variables are explained by three main theoretical frameworks: the activation-based goal memory model, prospective memory, and multiple resource theory. DISCUSSION: This review provides a useful starting point for a more comprehensive examination of interruptions potentially leading to an improved understanding about the impact of this phenomenon on patient safety and task efficiency. The authors provide some recommendations to counter interruption effects.
conclusionThe effects of interruption are the outcome of a complex set of variables and should not be considered as uniformly predictable or bad. The task types, variables, and theories should help us better to identify which clinical tasks and contexts are most susceptible and assist in the design of information systems and processes that are resilient to interruption.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.