In order to assess and describe the characteristics of the scientific literature on nursing administration, a historical desk research was conducted according to a taxonomy proposed by scholars, including 596 abstracts on the subject available in the collection of the Theses and Dissertations Database of the Brazilian Nursing Association. The topics were classified according to the theoretical approach proposed, calculating simple and relative frequencies for each domain and the identification variables of the studies. It was found that a third of the studies assessed had been produced in the Southeast of Brazil and were the subject of master's theses. The thematic classification showed that 17.6% of the studies referred to ideological and theoretical bases of nursing administration, 13.1% to intervention methods, and 69.3% to resource administration practices. The assessment culminated with the proposition of a new structure of knowledge about nursing administration that might represent that knowledge produced in Brazilian graduate programs.
History of nursing; Nursing administration research; Academic dissertations; Education, nursing, graduate; Knowledge
