Profile of brazilian dissertations and theses on trauma: a documentary research.

Objective: To characterize the dissertations and theses available in the Bank of Theses of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) that deal with trauma.

Methods: This is a documentary research on the characterization of Brazilian theses and dissertations that deal with trauma, available at the CAPES Theses Database. Data collection was carried out in March 2012, by master's degree students and PhDs, following a research protocol.

Results: A total of 411 dissertations and theses about trauma were analyzed. We elucidated considerations on the following aspects of the selected studies: academic level, location of conduction of the work, author's training, methodological design, theme and type of trauma.

Conclusion: The significant amount of studies analyzed reveals the importance of trauma in the current scenario, the expansion of graduate programs and researchers being in line with the theme that alarmingly affects the national and international epidemiology.