Missed nursing care common to emergency and intensive care settings: scoping review

Introduction: Scientific literature addresses the omission of nursing care in distinct contexts separately. Yet, critically ill patients are found in emergency departments and intensive care units, often moving between both contexts. Thus, to promote care quality and safety, it is vital to identify nursing care omissions common to these settings, their causes, their effects, and possible mitigation strategies. Objetive: To map the available scientific evidence on missed nursing care common to emergency and intensive care settings. Methods: We conducted a scoping review, gathering relevant works from various databases: Scopus, Medline, PubMed, CINAHL, MedicLatina and RCAAP. We included diverse works on missed nursing care in critically ill patients within the target contexts, its causes, its effects, and possible mitigation strategies. We only considered works with free access and written in Portuguese, English, or Spanish. The final sample comprised 14 articles. Results: The sample’s analysis revealed several nursing care omissions common to both contexts (namely related to documentation and to the nurse-patient relationship) and their causes. Still, considerable shared effects/mitigation strategies were not found. Conclusion: In the studied contexts, critically ill patients require highly complex care. This review allowed identifying missed nursing care common to the target settings and its causes. However, substantial shared effects/mitigation strategies were not detected.