Virtual simulation in nursing education in Latin America and the Caribbean: A bibliometric study

1) Virtual simulation connects theory and practice in nursing education.(2) Only Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Cuba conducted research on the subject. (3) Brazilian journals lead scientific production on virtual simulation. (4) Scientific production on the subject has increased.

to examine the characteristics of scientific production in Latin America and the Caribbean regarding virtual simulation in nursing education.

a bibliometric study conducted in five stages: research design, compiling the bibliometric data, analysis, visualization, and interpretation; and based on the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Bibliometric Analysis (PRIBA). The search was conducted in the Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (LILACS). VOSviewer version 1.6.20 was used for bibliometric analysis. Bradford's and Zipf's Laws were applied to interpret the data, considering the temporal dynamics of publications, an analytical approach to the structure of the selected studies and their repercussions in virtual simulation in nursing education in Latin America and the Caribbean.

579 studies were identified, of which 46 were included in the final sample. The studies included were published between 1994 and 2022, and only Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Cuba conducted research related to virtual simulation. The semantic map resulted in five clusters, highlighting "simulation training" as the most important term.

our findings suggest a projected increase in Scholarly publications on virtual simulation in nursing education in Latin America and the Caribbean in the coming years.