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Background: Performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation in non‐critical care hospital wards is a stressful event for the registered nurse; stress may negatively affect performance. Delays in initiating basic life support and following current basic life support algorithms have been reported globally. Aim: The aim of this review was to investigate factors that can affect registered nurses' experiences of performing basic life support. Methods: Using the five‐step integrative literature review method from Whittemore and Knafl, this review searched articles published between January 2000 and June 2022 for qualitative and quantitative primary studies from the databases CINAHL Complete (EBSCO), Medline (Web of Science), Scopus and PubMed. Results: Nine studies from eight countries met the inclusion criteria and were appraised here. Five themes relating to factors affecting the performance of basic life support were found during this review: staff interaction issues, confidence concerns, fear of harm and potential litigation, defibrillation concerns and basic life support training issues. Conclusions: This review revealed several concerns experienced by registered nurses in performing basic life support and highlights a lack of research. Factors affecting nurses' experiences need to be understood. This will allow education to focus on consideration of human factors, or non‐technical skills during basic life support training, as well as technical skills, to improve outcomes for patients experiencing an in‐hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. Summary statement: What is already known about this topic? In‐hospital basic life support is not always performed at expected levels.There is very little information on factors affecting registered nurses' experiences in performing basic life support, especially in non‐critical areas.Although human factors, such as teamwork, have recently been added to cardiopulmonary resuscitation education, these are poorly understood regarding ward nurses' real‐life experiences. What this paper adds? Factors impacting registered nurses' performance of basic life support in non‐critical care wards included staff interaction issues, confidence concerns, fear of harm and potential litigation, defibrillation concerns and basic life support training issues. The implications of this paper: Factors affecting nurses in performing basic life support need to be understood in order to improve performance.The identification of barriers from the literature allows educators to include targeted discussion and education within basic life support training to improve patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]