Conventional methods to gather information about surgeon's stress status and evaluate teamwork are typically based on expert supervision and self-reports. These measurements are highly operator-dependent (who may be prone to personal experience, cognitive, and emotional biases) require to interrupt the execution of tasks (i.e. invasiveness and low temporal resolution), and do not include information related to team members' stress demand (i.e. paucity of user's insights). It is therefore clear how these measurements alone cannot be used to accurately and properly assess the ongoing stress level experienced by the members of a team and consequently their teamwork. Neurophysiological (Electroencephalogram - EEG, Electrocardiogram - ECG, Electrodermal Activity -EDA, Electrooculogram - EOG) and Biological measures (blood, saliva and urine) have gained momentum in different research and operative areas and represent an objective, unobtrusive, and a powerful tool to determine user's affective stress state on the basis of mind-body relations. Coherently with this aspect, Industries started to be very interested in evaluating stress aspects together with skills acquisition since this kind of insights provide additional values for user's stress assessment, management, and safety. The computation and combination of synthetic neurophysiological and biological indexes for the investigation of surgeon's stress level will therefore radically change the entire field of stress management in the operating room (OR) and teamwork assessment.
