Tendências de pesquisas brasileiras sobre mulheres mastectomizadas

the objective was to analyze the trends in research conducted in brazil with women having mastectomies. this was a bibliographical study using a quantitative approach, performed from june 15 to july 31, 2009. to collect empirical data, we used a structured instrument, then the data were tabulated, analyzed, transformed into percentages and grouped into a table for easy viewing of the information. the sample consisted of abstracts obtained through an electronic search, using the bireme, lilacs, scielo, medline and bdenf databases. one hundred and eleven articles were found and after applying the inclusion criteria, there was a final sample of 69 articles. trends identified in the majority of abstracts were for qualitative research, the main focus being on rehabilitation. the region that has carried out most investigations was the southeast, followed by the northeast. many articles had no essential methodological information to allow the reader to understand the data, making it difficult to conduct searches in these databases.