Introduction:

The Nursing Activities Score has been used mainly in Intensive Care Units as an instrument to measure nursing activities since this is the unit that receives the most complex patients. For this reason, this scoping review aims to establish the workload using the Nursing Activities Score and the factors related to it in Intensive Care Units.

Methods:

Qualitative scoping review using the PRISMA statement. Searches were conducted in CINAHL, LILACS, Scopus, Science Direct, SciELO, and PubMed databases.

Results:

The final sample consists of 87 texts published between 2007 and 2021. They were classified into five categories: ICU workload, inter-unit comparison, workload related to nursing staff, workload related to patient characteristics, and workload consequences.

Discussion:

The review reveals a workload greater than 50% in most of the studies due to different factors, but mainly to patients' particular characteristics. No significant difference was observed between general and specialized units; high workloads are a risk factor for adverse events.

Conclusions:

This review shows that nurses are constantly exposed to high workloads. It is possible for workloads to affect or be influenced by various factors, such as the characteristics of patients being cared for, or to impact the quality of nursing care positively or negatively.

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