Research on the Quality of Abdominal Surgical Nursing Care: A Scoping Review

Various health care measures have been identified over the years as indicators of health care quality. However, studies evaluating the quality of nursing care among different patient groups are scarce. Patients undergoing abdominal surgery may be a group that has different views, needs, expectations, and evaluation of the quality of nursing care. Literature search was conducted using the following key words in various combinations in the MEDLINE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, and Cochrane databases: quality of nursing, surgical or perioperative, abdominal or abdomen. The studies that focused on the evaluation of surgical nursing care with a study sample of patients undergoing abdominal surgery and nurses taking care of these patients were included in this scoping review. In total, 17 research articles were analyzed. The analysis revealed that the quality of nursing care was usually rated as high according to the perceptions of patients and/or nurses. The following factors associated with the quality of nursing care were identified: nurse staffing, organizational characteristics, patients' characteristics, nurses' characteristics, nursing care needs, and nursing documentation. Further research should be focused on the measurement and evaluation of the quality of abdominal surgical nursing care from nurses', patients' and their relatives' perceptions by using nonexperimental and experimental study designs for gaining the knowledge how to improve the quality in practice.