[Occupational health nursing and professional associations: a reality in need of further development].

Scientific and professional and societies constitute an element of social transformation. The nursing associative trend has run parallel to the social reality of the profession and its historical evolution. The late incorporation is conditioned by a delay in the conception of the discipline as a scientific profession with its own body of knowledge. Among others, the purpose of an association in this field is to promote updating in the professional skills of its members, identify the demands of its affiliated, provoke an open debate, promote collaborative research, favor the generation of knowledge and transfer that academic content to society. The text proposes a panoramic view of this polyhedral reality in which professional and scientific societies of this nursing discipline find themselves.