Pesquisa odontológica no Brasil: características da produção científica no início do século XXI

Dentistry, as a science and field of knowledge, has presented a substantial development in the last decades in the areas of research and education. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Brazilian scientific production in Dentistry, as from their methodological outlining, which characterizes the XXI Century. Five thousand two hundred and three study abstracts were evaluated, comprising works presented in the meetings of the Brazilian Society of Dentistry Research (SBPqO), during the period of 2001 to 2006. The main results identify that, as for the methodology used in the researches, there was a predominance of the studies of an individuate, interventionist and longitudinal nature; of the researches in the areas of Dentistry, Periodontology, Endodontics, Pedodontics and Collective Oral Health and experimental studies about clinical researches or with collective subjects. The inter and multidisciplinarity are pointed out in the outlining of this study, as the triad Education-Health-Research is discussed, so that they transcend in their fields of action, in the direction of the transdisciplinarity. It is concluded that, in the studied period, there was a reasonable and balanced production in Brazilian dental field