Introduction:

Missing nursing care is a recently explored phenomenon which has impacts on patient security and quality of attention, and which questions the performance of nursing professionals.

Objective:

To gain understanding on the phenomenon of missing nursing care from the lens of state-of-the-art care management by reviewing related articles published in the period March 2012 - March 2018.

Methodology:

A documentary research was carried out in the PUBMED database using the following key terms: missed nursing care, misscare, AND nurse care. 47 research articles written in English or Spanish were selected. From the content analysis, the results were clustered in categories.

Results:

The following categories were selected: country were the research took place, units of attention, type of study, sample studied, instrument used, conceptual frame, and the elements, reasons, and predictors related to missing nursing care.

Conclusions:

The study of this phenomenon can bring about bases of orientation to the process of political decision-making, and strengthen the strategies and interventions in the practice, teaching, and research areas which can contribute to provide a better healthcare in institutions.