[Alcohol and drugs: preliminary survey of Brazilian nursing research].

This bibliographic study surveys knowledge about alcohol and drugs produced by Brazilian nursing until 2004 and registered in online databases, in order to identify the presence of this theme; the origin of this knowledge and means of dissemination, as well as to analyze tendencies in this production. We used: BIREME, CAPES, USP Base of Dissertations and Theses. Abstracts with nurses as the authors or co-authors served as the basic material. Using common descriptors in this area, we found 218 abstracts. Production increased from the 1990's onwards (29.8% of the total). Scientific articles (50.4%) and theses (37.2%) were predominant. Knowledge tended towards three theme categories: use of alcohol and other drugs (62.9%); vulnerable populations (27.5%), and users of alcohol and other drugs (9.6%). Alcohol and drugs appeared as comorbidities in many studies and 38.4% of the articles were published in journals from other health areas.