Quality of outpatient nursing care: a scoping review ^*

Objective: to map national and international scientific literature on the quality of outpatient nursing care.

Method: a scoping review guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute Collaboration, conducted across 12 databases and repositories. Only original articles evaluating the quality of outpatient nursing care were included. No restrictions were applied regarding time, methodology, or language. Data were mapped and organized through thematic and statistical descriptions of the articles. This review was registered on the Open Science Framework platform.

Results: a total of 45 studies published between 1984 and 2021 were identified, resulting in 17 quality indicators for outpatient nursing care, grouped according to Donabedian’s triad: four for structure, seven for process, and six for outcomes. The predominant area of care was oncology. Among the analyzed studies, 55.3% focused on patients. The most frequently cited indicators were continuing health education, service organization, communication, care coordination, and the nursing process.

Conclusion: the limited number of studies in this field, compared to other areas of nursing, highlights the underexploitation of the topic both nationally and internationally. Additionally, the diversity of identified indicators underscores the lack of standardization in these data.

Descriptors:
Ambulatory Care; Secondary Care; Nursing; Nursing Care; Health Care Quality Indicators; Quality of Health Care

Highlights:

(1) Few studies address the evaluation of outpatient nursing care quality. (2) Quality indicators identify challenges in healthcare services. (3) Publications on outpatient nursing care quality have increased since 2000. (4) Most of the evaluated studies focused on outpatient patients. (5) The most frequently cited quality indicator in the studies was Continuing Health Education.