Advanced practices and patient safety: An integrative literature review

Abstract

Objective: To identify, in the national and international literature, advanced practices in nursing that contribute to safe care. Methodology: An integrative review study was conducted in the indexed databases of PubMed, EBSCO, Proquest and Web of Science from June to August 2018 to answer the guiding questions: (1) What studies in the national and international literature relate advanced practices and patient safety?; and (2) How can advanced practices in nursing contribute to patient safety? The inclusion criteria were: academic articles published in journals (abstract and full text) in Portuguese, English or Spanish, adopting an empirical method of investigation of the study subject. The study had no restriction regarding the publication year. Results: The search in databases resulted in 91 references obtained at first; after analysis, the final sample consisted of 12 studies. Conclusion: The results of this integrative review showed that advanced practices in nursing have a positive relation to patient safety.