Portuguese nursing: analysis of knowledge production and dissemination through institutional repositories

Abstract

Theoretical framework: Nursing bases its practices in analytical reasoning and the best evidence available. Institutional repositories add a new dimension to information management. Objectives: To analyze the production and dissemination of nursing knowledge by scientific papers stored in institutional repositories of open access. Methodology: Descriptive and documental study with data collected at 17 institutional repositories that have communities, collections or publications related to nursing. We analyzed the number and type of documents, year of publication, number of authors, research areas and keywords. Results: In 1738 documents, we found: articles published in journals not indexed (31.2%); master’s dissertations (30.3%); doctoral theses (4.1%); books (2.4%); book chapters (5.5%) and articles not indexed (8.5%). Since 2006, on average, published papers had a higher number of authors. We observed a significant increase in scientific production (70.7%) between 2010-2014. Conclusion: The results show an increase in scientific productivity. As for the diffusion of knowledge we suggest the publication in indexed journals, and subsequent self-archiving in institutional repositories.