Nursing knowledge patterns: nurses' image and role in society perceived by students.

Objectives: to understand high school students' perception about the nurse's image and role in society, from nursing knowledge patterns.

Methods: phenomenographic qualitative study, developed between October 2017 and January 2018, in a public university in the countryside of the state of São Paulo, with eight Interdisciplinary Higher Education Program (Programa de Formação Interdisciplinar Superior) students. The findings were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed by the phenomenography framework, supported by rereading nursing knowledge patterns.

Results: two categories emerged: Perception of nurses' image, which contemplates their positive and negative characteristics, attributes and place where they operate; and Nurses' role in society, in which their work is compared with physicians'. Final Considerations: despite their essential role in care, subordination to medical knowledge and lack of knowledge of nurses' functions still reflect their image.