The nursing team’s perspective on missed nursing care: An analysis of the reasons

Abstract

Background: Faced with multiple requests and insufficient resources, the nursing professionals may not perform some required care. Objectives: Identify the missing nursing care, the reasons attributed by nursing professionals and check whether the reasons differ between professional categories. Methodology: A descriptive, cross-sectional study using the MISSCARE-Brazil instrument in a convenience sample of 115 participants, distributed between 48 nurses and 67 nursing technicians. Results: Participants had a mean age of 34.9 years, predominantly female, 88.6%. The most omitted nursing care were walking three times a day or as prescribed, 58.3%; the participation in the discussion of the interdisciplinary team about patient care, 55.6% and the offer of meals to patients who eat alone, 53.1%. The main reasons for the omission were related to the “Material Resources” and “Laboratory” domains. Conclusion: material and labor resources influence the frequency of missing nursing care, despite different justifications for omission of care among nurses and nursing technicians.