RESUMO
This is a bibliographical study that has as its aim characterizing the Brazilian scientific production on the "Patient Care System" and visualizing its trends. A retrospective bibliogra-phical study (1990-2002) was carried out taking into consideration the items: date, title of the journal, type of research and approach of the publication. Production average was 13.4 publications/ year and articles were distributed among 23 journals, with a majority of them dealing with hospitals (63.2%). Cardiology was the theme of 17.6% of the articles, and 78.6% of them were focused on the implementation, development and evaluation of SAE models. NANDA taxonomy was men-tioned in 40.2% of the production, and Wanda Horta in 40.5%. There are still some blanks in this area of knowledge, but the increasing availability of the scientific production on this subject may help professionals in the implementation of the patient care system.