RESUMO
The objective of this study is to show nursing research situation in public and private hospitals in the city of São Paulo, from 1989 to 1993. It is an exploratory and descriptive research. The questionnaire was answered by nursing directors of 14 hospitals--7 public and 7 private. 114 researches were developed in public hospitals and 40 in private hospitals. The results demonstrated that the majority of studies were developed by four or more authors and most of them were presented in scientifics events. The facilities and difficulties to develop research and to implement the results in nursing practice were also pointed out. Research centers, faculty-practice nursing, and admission of nurses researched were registered as strategies to develop research in some of these institutions.