Table 2. For the day and the night shift of Swiss and Japanese nurses the mean values and SD of electromyography (EMG) parameters, heart rate and time pressure at the beginning and at the end of the shifts are shown. The percentiles of EMG activity were expressed relative to the reference voluntary electrical activation (RVE). nJapan=22, nSwitzerland=17 for EMG parameters, nJapan=16, nSwitzerland=17 for heart rate and nJapan=20, nSwitzerland=17 for the diary.
| Japan |
Switzerland |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day shift | Night shift | Day shift | Night shift | ||
| Rest time (% of shift) | 7.1 ± 7.1 | 5.6 ± 6.0 | 9.6 ± 8.2 | 13.8 ± 12.4 | |
| 10th percentile (% RVE) | 7.0 ± 4.3 | 9.9 ± 7.1 | 6.6 ± 3.2 | 6.1 ± 3.3 | |
| 50th percentile (% RVE) | 28.8 ± 12.2 | 34.2 ± 13.9 | 33.5 ± 13.0 | 28.2 ± 14.2 | |
| 90th percentile (% RVE) | 82.7 ± 18.8a (84.6 ± 19.4)b |
100.4 ± 34.7a (90.2 ± 24.1)b |
91.9 ± 22.3 | 86.9 ± 23.8 | |
| Heart rate (bpm) | 91.2 ± 9.5 | 83.4 ± 7.7 | 89.7 ± 9.2 | 82.2 ± 10.0 | |
| Time pressure beginningc | 2.8 ± 1.1 | 2.8 ± 0.9 | 3.2 ± 0.7 | 2.9 ± 1.0 | |
| Time pressure endc | 3.5 ± 0.8 | 3.5 ± 1.0 | 2.9 ± 0.8 | 2.9 ± 0.7 | |
a all data. b data without the 3 subjects mentioned in Results. c reported time pressure at the beginning/at the end of the shift.