On the medical act to the nurse's act: principles for an autonomous practice of nursing.

The purposeful question: This study deals with the search of answers to what it is the act of caring in the question 'what the nurse makes that is specific in her practice?' The objectives: - To identify the substantive clippings in other clippings of 38 studies carried through on the nursing practice in the period of 1999-2001, which ones contemplate 614 nurses answers; - to point out the nursing acts as the specifc ones besides identifying the principles where they are based. The Methodology: The data treatment was quantitative and qualitative analyses of the answers plus an approach through meta-analysis. The RESULTS: The obtained 81 data clippings indicate that 59,0 % of the nurses pointed out that the medical act gives the direction to the nurse's act, while 41,0% of them only signalizes to the Acts of Caring, but without a specific identification as such. The 'strength and fragility' of the data findings are claiming to the necessity of an appropriate consideration about the caring/teaching space as the one that can characterize the proper nurse's act, besides what it also demands the phenomena identification and the specific nursing interventions properly understood in the peculiar style and autonomous nursing acts. This abstract was translated into English by the publisher or author.