Open AccessPsychophysiological Stress Indicators of Heart Rate Variability and Electrodermal Activity With Application in Healthcare Simulation Research
Author(s) -
Ravi Bhoja,
Oren Guttman,
Amanda A. Fox,
Emily Melikman,
Matthew Kosemund,
Kevin J. Gingrich
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
simulation in healthcare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1559-713X
pISSN - 1559-2332
DOI - 10.1097/sih.0000000000000402
Subject(s) - stressor , psychology , stress (linguistics) , health care , heart rate variability , heart rate , stress measures , psychophysiology , applied psychology , clinical psychology , medicine , neuroscience , blood pressure , linguistics , philosophy , economics , radiology , economic growth
Psychological stress arises from a stressor placed on an individual that leads to both emotional and physiological responses. The latter is referred to as psychophysiological stress. Healthcare simulation provides a platform to investigate stress psychobiology and its effects on learning and performance. However, psychophysiological stress measures may be underused in healthcare simulation research. The inclusion of such measures with subjective measures of stress in healthcare simulation research provides a more complete picture of the stress response, thereby furthering the understanding of stress and its impact on learning and performance. The goals of this article were to review 2 commonly used psychophysiological stress measures involving heart rate variability and electrodermal activity reflecting sweat gland activity and to demonstrate their utility in an example pilot study in healthcare simulation research.