Standardisation Strategies for Nursing Handovers in Paediatric Hospitalisation

Background/Objectives: To identify existing evidence on strategies for standardising nursing handovers in paediatric hospital settings, given their impact on communication, safety, and quality of care. International bodies such as the WHO and The Joint Commission recommend standardisation as a key m...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Buck Sainz Rozas, Pablo|||0000-0002-9401-2699, García Fernández, Laia|||0009-0008-3105-493X, Duque Domínguez, Marina|||0009-0006-3423-3138
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2026
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:uabarcelona_::b28d8d1acbd9e9021de57281256e76b9
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/327723
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.3390/nursrep16030084
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Patient safety
Patient handover
Communication
Nurses
Paediatrics
Reference standards
Descripción
Sumario:Background/Objectives: To identify existing evidence on strategies for standardising nursing handovers in paediatric hospital settings, given their impact on communication, safety, and quality of care. International bodies such as the WHO and The Joint Commission recommend standardisation as a key measure to reduce patient safety incidents. Methods: A scoping review was conducted in December 2022 using Medline, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and CINAHL databases. The search strategy included documents published between 2012 and 2022, in Spanish, English, Catalan, French, and/or Portuguese. We screened according to inclusion criteria (professional nurses and hospitalisation) and exclusion criteria (intensive care and medical professionals) and tabulated the results according to concurrent themes. The PRISMA-ScR guidelines were followed. Results: A total of 308 records were identified. After screening, 25 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. Following quality appraisal, six were excluded for not meeting predefined criteria, resulting in 19 studies included in the final synthesis. The evidence mapped shows that most structured communication tools have been developed or validated in adult or medical contexts, with limited evaluation in paediatric nurse-to-nurse inpatient settings. Standardised structured communication tools used in hospital settings include SBAR, I-PASS, and Flex 11, while assessment instruments such as the Handoff CEX Scale and Handover Evaluation Scale have been applied to evaluate handover quality. Conclusions: Structured communication tools may contribute to improving information transfer and perceived quality of handover; however, paediatric nurse-specific evidence remains limited and frequently derives from non-nursing or adult contexts. Further adaptation and validation in paediatric inpatient nursing settings are required.