[Health education to ostomy patients: a bibliometrics study]

This study has as its objective to identify the scientific studies dealing with the orientation to patients submitted to ostomy published between 1970 to 2004 and to classify them according to quantity, chronology of publication, authors' function, source, kind of study, topic, origin and key words by using the bibliometrics methodology. A total of 27 publications were collected in the DEDALUS databank, in the LILACS and MEDLINE databases and from a professor of the University of São Paulo's Nursing School (EEUSP, which is a national reference in ostomy in Brazil). Of these, 19 were written by Brazilians and 8 by non-Brazilians; most were written by nurses and enterostomal therapists. Dissertations, theses, orientation manuals, books and articles were found. The origin of the material was academia, laboratories and hospitals. The 1990s concentrated the largest number of studies in this thematic area. All of them have the purpose of elevating patients' self-esteem in order to make them feel that, even with an ostomy, they can have a normal life. Thus the study concludes that the nurse, as an educator for the ostomy patient, should be acquainted with those publications to improve the assistance he/she provides.