Missed nursing care in acute care hospital settings in low-middle income countries: a systematic review protocol

Background:  Missed nursing care (care left undone or task incompletion) is viewed as an important early predictor of adverse patient care outcomes and is a useful indicator to determine the quality of patient care. Available systematic reviews on missed nursing care are based mainly on primary studies from developed countries, and there is limited evidence on missed nursing care from low-middle income countries (LMICs). We propose conducting a systematic review to identify the magnitude of missed nursing care and document factors and reasons associated with this phenomenon in LMIC settings. Methods and analysis:  This protocol was developed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P). We will conduct literature searching across the Ovid Medline, Embase and EBSCO Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases, from inception to 2021. Two independent reviewers will conduct searches and data abstraction, and discordance will be handled by discussion between both parties. The risk of bias of the individual studies will be determined using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Ethics and dissemination: Ethical permission is not required for this review as we will make use of already published data. We aim to publish the findings of our review in peer-reviewed journals PROSPERO registration number: CRD42021286897 (27 ^th October 2021).