The effect of work shift on nurses' evaluations of patient behavior: implications for team decision making.

The authors conceptualized multidisciplinary team decision making in terms of information collection, communication, and combination. The study explored the potentially biasing effects of situational variables on information collection. When compared with evening shift nurses, day shift nurses rated patients as much less competent. The authors discuss how this biased information collection can be transmitted throughout the decision process and suggest that more attention be paid to situational influences on information used in team decision making.