Leadership and participation of nurses in hospital governance: impact on the quality and safety of care provided – scoping review protocol

Context: The use of the term governance in the area of health is a trend, particularly in the level of discussions about good leadership and management practices that can be adopted to improve the care provided to people and the community in general. One of the main principles of hospital governance is the participation and involvement of nurses in management and decision-making processes, requiring strong involvement in care management, with significant effects on the quality of care provided to the person. Aim: Map the available evidence on the impact of leadership and participation of nurses on hospital governance in what concerns quality and safety of care provided. Methods: Methodology proposed by the Joanna Briggs Institute, defining a scoping review protocol adapted for the identification of relevant studies that meet the inclusion criteria previously outlined. The analysis of relevance of the articles, the extraction and synthesis of the data will be developed by two independent reviewers. Results: Evidence is expected to show that shared governance in the health area plays an important role in patient’s safety and quality of care provided, which requires the involvement of all health professionals, particularly nurses. It is hoped that shared governance systems, which may vary from hospital to hospital organization, according to their institutional values and goals, will help promote environments of leadership and management favourable to a quality professional practice, empowering nurses in decision-making that affect themselves, the rest of the multidisciplinary team and, above all, the patients. The results expected to be achieved will contribute to the dissemination of available evidence. Conclusion: It is believed that this scoping review will contribute to evidence the current state of knowledge about the theme and that the results found are guidelines for the development and applicability of quality indicators that ensure the safety of care provided.