Toward the establishment of a forensic nursing specialty in Brazil: an integrative literature review.

BACKGROUND

Over the past two decades, Brazil has made progress in bringing political and community attention to issues related to violence. The recognition of links between violence and health has intensified calls to accelerate the development of a forensic nursing specialty in Brazil.

AIM

The aim of this study was to systematically examine and synthesize the literature on the development of the forensic nursing specialty around the globe and to extract important lessons for the establishment of a forensic nursing specialty in Brazil.

METHOD

An integrative review was conducted according to the method described by Whittmore and Knafl (2005). Electronic searches of the following databases were conducted between December 2012 and March 2013: CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Criminal Justice, Index to Legal periodicals, MEDLINE, Soc Index with Full Text, Social Work Abstracts, SCOPUS, and PsycINFO. The search terms used were: [(TI nurs* or SU nurs*) and [TI (forensic* or penal or prison*) or SU (forensic* or penal or prison*)] and (sexual assault nurse examiner*). Preestablished inclusion/exclusion criteria were used to select published articles for review.

RESULTS

Twenty-three articles met inclusion criteria and were included in the full review. Important lessons for Brazil are discussed in terms of education and curricular issues and forensic psychiatric nursing.

CONCLUSIONS

In Brazil, there is a window of opportunity to contribute the theoretical foundations of forensic nursing science and to advance nursing specialty practice in the areas of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners and forensic psychiatric nurses.