Workflow and decision making of operating room nurses: integrative review

Abstract

Objective: Identify workflow factors in the operating room and their implications, which influence nurses’ decision making. Method: Integrative review of the literature conducted through searches in the databases: Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences; Nursing Database; Pubmed; Scopus and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. The results were organized into factors related to positive, negative and positive and negative implications. Results: The sample of 18 articles included examples of factors with positive implications, such as preoperative data collection, negative outcomes, such as lack of human, material and structural resources, and positive and negative outcomes, as preparation for certification. Conclusions: Factors that influence the decision-making process of nurses are associated to different conditions: client-related conditions and those conditions that go beyond the domain and organization of the surgical environment.