Assessment of Scrub Nurses' Non‐Technical Skills and Their Relationship With Mental Workload in Educational Hospitals

ABSTRACT Safe surgical practice depends on both technical expertise and strong non‐technical skills. Scrub nurses play a key role in the operating room, yet their performance may be affected by high mental workload. This cross‐sectional study evaluated non‐technical skills and mental workload among 200 scrub nurses in five educational hospitals in 2025. Data were collected using the NASA‐TLX and SPLINTS tools. Results showed that while scrub nurses had generally good non‐technical skills, they also experienced high mental workload. Among female nurses, higher frustration levels were linked to lower performance in assertiveness and information recognition. In nurses with temporary employment, greater mental demand correlated positively with some skill components. Older, more experienced nurses scored lower in information gathering. As the scores of mental workload domains are negatively correlated with scrub nurses' non‐technical skills domains, targeted strategies to reduce mental workload may improve non‐technical skills performance. Further research is recommended for exploring these results.