Prevalence and Reasons for Occurrence of Missed Nursing Care in a Medical and Surgical Departments: A Cross-sectional Study

Prevalence of Missed Nursing Care

Abstract

Aim: To measure the prevalence of missed nursing care and determine the reasons and risk factors for its occurrence in surgical and medical departments.

Methods: A cross-sectional design was used. All registered nurses aged ≥ 18 years who had worked for more than six months were included. The MISSEDCARE survey tool was used to determine missed nursing care (Part A) and reasons for its occurrence (Part B). Multivariate regression was used to determine risk factors for missed nursing care. The significance level was set at p<0.05.

Findings: The prevalence of missing nursing care ranged from 4.8% (n=8) to 84.8% (n=140). Nurses with a high turnover intention had a great risk of the following missed nursing care: ‘medications administered within 30 min before or after the scheduled time’ [OR=11.60, CI 95%: 3.76-35.75; p <0.0001], ‘assess the effectiveness of medications’ [OR=3.79, CI 95%: 1.79-8.04; p <0.0001]. Urgent patient situations were the main reasons for missing patient-specific reassessment to verify improvement or deterioration during the shift [OR=6.82, CI 95%:1.84-25.26; p =0.008] and assess the effectiveness of medications.

Conclusions: This study showed a high prevalence of missed nursing care in surgical and medical departments; labour resources increased the risk of missed nursing care.