Nursing care in the anesthetic procedure: an integrative review

OBJECTIVE: To search for the scientific evidence available on nursing professional actions during the anesthetic procedure. METHOD: An integrative review of articles in Portuguese, English and Spanish, indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed, CINAHL, LILACS, National Cochrane, SciELO databases and the VHL portal. RESULTS: Seven studies were analyzed, showing nurse anesthetists' work in countries such as the United States and parts of Europe, with the formulation of a plan for anesthesia and patient care regarding the verification of materials and intraoperative controls. The barriers to their performance involved working in conjunction with or supervised by anesthesiologists, the lack of government guidelines and policies for the legal exercise of the profession, and the conflict between nursing and the health system for maintenance of the performance in places with legislation and defined protocols for the specialty. CONCLUSION: Despite the methodological weaknesses found, the studies indicated a wide diversity of nursing work. Furthermore, in countries absent of the specialty, like Brazil, the need to develop guidelines for care during the anesthetic procedure was observed.