A Scientif ic Overview of Worldwide Research Activities on Trauma in Mental Health Nursing

The number of studies on trauma in psychiatric nursing is steadily increasing. An annual growth rate of 7.7% is observed in publications, and the highest number of publications is expected to be reached in 2025. This trend highlights the growing significance of trauma-related research on psychiatric nursing.

This study aimed to examine the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of publications on trauma in the field of psychiatric nursing from a bibliometric perspective. The Web of Science database was used for this research.

In this study, a bibliometric analysis, which is a methodological approach used to determine the scope of knowledge in a specific field and evaluate productivity, was applied. Data were collected by screening studies published up to June 2025, the study date, without time limitation, using the keyword combination "mental health nursing" OR "psychiatric nursing" AND "trauma."

In this study, 523 trauma studies and reviews conducted in the field of psychiatric nursing between 1996 and 2025 were identified, and the analysis was completed using 461 studies in accordance with the exclusion criteria. The analysis revealed 1,630 authors, 383 research articles, and 78 reviews/systematic reviews, with an average of 16.5 citations per publication.

A noticeable increase has been observed in the participation of psychiatric nurses in trauma research. It is recommended that nursing professionals conduct more research to examine trauma processes by considering biopsychosocial factors and developing ethically sound approaches for both patients and healthy individuals.