[Ethical and bioethical issues disturbing nursing: REBEn's publications from 1970 to 2000].

It was studied the ethical and/or bioethical issues published in the Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem (Brazilian Nursing Journal-REBEn) that disturbed the nursing in the period between 1970 and 2000. Tha aim was to identify in articles published in the REBEn, during the mentioned period, subjects related to the ethics/bioethics. To discuss the theoretical perspectives in which the authors base their arguments. The study was quantitative and qualitative, documentary or bibliographical type.in the last 30 years it had gradual increase in the number of the articles that debates ethical questionings. After 1984 appear the first study, with bioethics connotation, in which the author discourses on the interventions of nursing before the patient in imminent death, with the purpose to verify the relations between the personal and professional values of the nurse. Was Valdria Lunardi who used the bioethics term for the first time in 1998.