[RELEVANCE OF NURSES ON THE PREANALYTIC PHASE AND PATIENT SAFETY IMPLICATIONS]

Nowadays, the patient's safety is considered one of the pillars in a high quality clinical assistance. Inside three steps of laboratory process, it is in the first one, the preanalytical, where most mistakes are made. Nurses are very involved in the development of this period because it is where is included the sampling.

We reviewed the literature with the aim to identify the most frequent mistakes, the related factors, the measures taken for its detection and prevention. It emphasizes the importance of nurses in this area, as many of the errors are related to sampling.

We conclude that it is very important to establish suitable andsafe clinical practice standards, identifying improvement areas and planning training programs which contributes to decrease the mistake risk and clinical variability, with special mention to the nurses at this stage.