Relating physician's workload with errors during radiation therapy planning.

Purpose: To relate subjective workload (WL) levels to errors for routine clinical tasks.

Methods And Materials: Nine physicians (4 faculty and 5 residents) each performed 3 radiation therapy planning cases. The WL levels were subjectively assessed using National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). Individual performance was assessed objectively based on the severity grade of errors. The relationship between the WL and performance was assessed via ordinal logistic regression.

Results: There was an increased rate of severity grade of errors with increasing WL (P value = .02). As the majority of the higher NASA-TLX scores, and the majority of the performance errors were in the residents, our findings are likely most pertinent to radiation oncology centers with training programs.

Conclusions: WL levels may be an important factor contributing to errors during radiation therapy planning tasks.