Achievements and Impact of Student Scientific Societies in Health Sciences

Introduction: In health sciences university programs, research allows students to relate to the processes of scientific research and use them in clinical care. Objective: To describe the achievements and results presented by student scientific societies in health sciences programs. Methods: Literature review of original articles in the databases Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, SciELO, Redalyc, and Google Scholar. Articles proposing student scientific societies or showing results of students participating in them were included as an object of study. Results: 17 original articles were found. Most of the studies (n = 6) determined, through bibliometric indicators, the scientific production of a student scientific society. Other studies (n = 5) assessed the production of students based on surveys. One study considered a student scientific society as the object of study, based on the observation of its practices. Another took into account the importance of research in societies. Conclusions: The original articles focused on describing scientific production as the main indicator of achievement of societies, mainly in the human medicine program. Student scientific societies promote the publication of articles from the undergraduate level, mainly letters to the editor. It cannot be concluded that they are strategies that improve research skills, due to the small number of studies that assessed training aspects.