Collaboration among Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses: A Scoping Review of Practice Guidelines

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Healthcare Quality Improvement

Background:

• Intraprofessional collaboration among nurses is recognized as crucial for quality patient care.
• A significant gap exists in empirical evidence and detailed descriptions of nurse-nurse collaboration and its outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a scoping review of nursing practice guidelines concerning registered nurse (RN) and registered/licensed practical nurse (R/LPN) collaboration in acute care.
• To identify gaps in the literature regarding intraprofessional nursing collaboration.

Main Methods:

• A scoping review was performed on ten nursing practice guidelines published in Canada.
• Guidelines were analyzed to assess their evidence base, structural support for collaboration, stated outcomes, and process components.

Main Results:

• A major finding was that many guidelines were not evidence-informed.
• While guidelines addressed structures for collaboration and mentioned quality patient care as an outcome, specific outcome indicators were frequently absent.
• Conflict resolution, a key collaborative process, was mentioned in only a few guidelines.

Conclusions:

• Current nursing practice guidelines for intraprofessional collaboration in acute care often lack an evidence base and measurable outcome indicators.
• Future guidelines should be evidence-informed and incorporate specific metrics to evaluate the success of collaborative nursing practice.