Introduction:

Acute kidney injury has become a common complication in hospitalised children, especially when they are in a critical clinical situation.

Objective:

To identify and synthesise the most up-to-date scientific literature on acute kidney injury in the paediatric population.

Methodology:

Descriptive study of integrative review. The search for articles was carried out in the PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar databases. The search strategy was established with the following MeSH terms: “acute kidney injury”, “children” and “paediatric”. Methodological quality was assessed using the STROBE scale.

Results:

35 articles were included, 19 with a retrospective observational design, 12 prospective observational, 3 literature reviews and 1 qualitative study. There are no notable socio-demographic variables that imply a greater probability of presenting acute kidney injury. Both aetiology and risk factors are highly variable. Acute kidney injury is associated with a greater number of complications and hospital stay. There is no evidence of nursing care in acute kidney injury in paediatric patients.

Conclusions:

A lack of homogeneity in the criteria for definition, incidence, aetiology, risk factors and treatment in paediatric patients with acute kidney injury is observed, as well as a scarcity of original research articles. Paediatric acute kidney injury is associated with higher mortality, morbidity, longer hospital stays and duration of mechanical ventilation. The role of nursing in the management of conservative treatment and renal replacement therapies is vital in the survival of such patients.