Knowledge structure in nursing research on infection control: application of topic modeling

Area of Science:

• Nursing Research
• Infection Control
• Public Health

Background:

• Growing emphasis on infection control necessitates analysis of nursing research.
• Mapping scholarly themes identifies priorities and knowledge structures for optimized infection control.

Purpose of the Study:

• Identify meaningful concepts and trends in infection control research.
• Expand research scope with new insights into infection control strategies.

Main Methods:

• Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling used for trend identification.
• Analysis of 2,651 papers published between 1974 and 2022.
• Data sourced from nine databases including PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus.

Main Results:

• Four core themes identified: epidemiological investigation (33.82%), infection control leadership (24.06%), hygiene management of vulnerable subjects (22.06%), and transmission route blocking (20.06%).
• Epidemiological investigation and infection control leadership emerged as 'hot topics' with increasing trends.
• Hygiene management and transmission route blocking identified as 'cold topics' with declining research focus.

Conclusions:

• Elucidates the multidimensional knowledge structure of nursing infection control research.
• Enhancing infection control may benefit from addressing organizational factors like leadership and supervision.
• Integrating epidemiological evidence into nursing practices can strengthen infection control systems.