RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of and reasons for missed nursing care in oncology units. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted at inpatient oncology units at a private hospital. Eighty-three professionals from the nursing team took part. The MISSCARE instrument and a sociodemographic questionnaire were administered. Simple descriptive statistics were used for analyses. Pearson's chi-square test was used to detect associations between variables. RESULTS: The care tasks missed most frequently were assisting with toileting needs within 5 minutes of a request (57.8%), ambulation 3 times per day or as ordered (44.6%), and turning patients every 2 hours (36.1%). The main reasons for missed care were related to communication: tension or communication breakdowns within the nursing team, and the caregiver responsible off unit or unavailable (both 66.2%). CONCLUSIONS: there is a need to develop nursing interventions that neutralize and/or reduce the negative results of this missed care in order to improve the quality of care provided to cancer patients.