The validation of AORN recommended practices in Finnish perioperative nursing documentation.

In Finland, there are no common guidelines or recommended practices for perioperative documentation. Thus, perioperative nursing documentation varies from one operating department to another. To create minimum criteria for nursing documentation in Finland, we conducted an investigation in a university hospital district in 2006. Purposive sampling was used to invite experts in perioperative nursing documentation (N = 42) to serve as a Delphi panel. The final criteria are 120 items, 71% of which are based on the AORN standards and recommended practices. These criteria may be used to educate students and new perioperative personnel and to enhance the quality of nursing practice. To ensure relevance and usability, the criteria should be tested in various perioperative settings with a variety of surgical patients.