Taking a look to promoting health and complications' prevention: differences by context

to acknowledge and compare the health promotion and complications' prevention practices performed by nurses working in hospital and primary health care contexts.

descriptive, exploratory and crosscutting study, performed with 474 nurses selected by convenience sampling. It was used a form that encompassed two categories of descriptive statements about quality in the professional exercise of nurses. This study had ethical committee approval.

the nurses' population was mainly women (87,3%) with an average age of 35,5 years. There was more practices of the hospital's nurses related to the identification of potential problems of the patient (p=0.001) and supervision of the activities that put in place the nursing interventions and the activities that they delegate (p=0.003).

the nurses perform health promotion and complications' prevention activities, however not in a systematic fashion and professional practices differ by context. This study is relevant as it may promote the critical consciousness of the nurses about the need of stressing quality practices.