It is a literature review held by means of abstract consultation in the theses and dissertations data base of the Coordination of Specialization for the Superior Level Staff (CAPES - in Portuguese), from 1997 to 2006, using the words: professional's health and nursing. 172 abstracts were identified. Most used key words were: nursing job and work (14.3%), occupational hazards (10%) and work accidents (10%). Only 119 out of 172 productions referred to the nature of the study, 52.9% have a quantitative approach in many research studies, ultimately descriptive or exploratory studies or both. Future outlook in this production field may be the issue of changing the study typology, putting aside descriptive and exploratory qualitative or quantitative studies in order to search scientific evidences and modern investigative methodologies besides the implementation of intervention proposals as well as the appreciation of nurses' educational function.