Research is being pointed out as a path to nursing recognition. The knowledge production concerning the tendencies of research lines in nursing during the 90's, in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, took part of a study that had the purpose to know the impact of the nursing profession practice on health in Latin America and in the Caribbean Islands. The methodology used was the exploratory quantitative research, and the database used were Lilacs and Medline. The most frequent investigation themes refer to nursing profession (up to 13.2). Regarding the lines of investigation in nursing, we found out that the nursing professional stood out with 41, being technique and methodology the main approaches. Chile was the country that produced the largest amount of research, 86.8 of the summaries. Referring to the financing source, no reference is made in 86.8 of the summaries. With reference to the number of authors involved with the published literature, 50.7 of the literature have only one author. The nurses should be aware to invest in the enlargement of this production.