Status Quo and Real Experience of Missed Nursing Care in ICUs: A Scoping Review

Missed nursing care (MNC) is widespread in intensive care units (ICUs), severely threatening patient safety and nursing quality. It has become a key research topic in both national and international studies.

To identify the status quo of MNC in the ICU and explore nurses' real experiences of encountering MNC.

Using the scoping review methodology as the framework, we searched Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, Wanfang, SinoMed, CNKI and VIP databases until April 25, 2025 and used the topic analysis method and the social-ecological model to classify the included studies.

A total of 1038 studies were retrieved, and 14 were included. The review found that the factors influencing MNC in ICUs were synthesised into four interrelated categories: intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, community and public policy levels; nurses' real experiences were synthesised into two themes: emotional burden and adaptive growth.

MNC in the ICU is determined by multiple factors, threatening care quality and patient safety. Meanwhile, as both contributors to and bearers of MNC, nurses face an emotional burden and achieve adaptive growth after experiencing MNC. Identifying the multidimensional factors of MNC and nurses' real experiences in the ICU supports managers in strategy-making, optimises staffing and informs care-process improvements and quality enhancement.

It is recommended that clinical managers formulate MNC management norms based on the multidimensional influencing factors and dual emotional experiences of nurses' MNC experiences and take relevant measures to improve the environment of medical institutions, optimise human resources and pay attention to nurses' real experiences.

The review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AEDFP).