National and International Trends in Research on Moral Distress in Nursing: Text-network Analysis and Topic Modeling

Abstract

This article reports on a study that examined thematic trends in published research, in Korea and abroad, on moral distress in nursing. After extracting English abstracts from 38 domestic and 159 foreign publications, degree-centrality analysis and topic modeling were performed using the NetMiner 4 program. The common core keywords found in the domestic and international abstracts are “nurse, moral distress, moral sensitivity, intensive care unit, end-of-life care, experience, burnout, and care.” The core keywords in the domestic abstracts are “education program, person-centered care, job satisfaction, empowerment, hospital, long-term care facility, nursing practice environment, nursing student, turnover intention, clinical nursing practice, and emergency.” The core keywords in the international abstracts are “patient, family, healthcare provider, palliative care, decision-making, ethical issue, child, dementia patient, management, person, life, and staff.” Topic modeling found three topics that are common to both domestic and international abstracts and two topics that differ. This study suggests that although there are common core subject areas in both domestic and international research, some subject areas are studied more actively abroad and require the attention of domestic researchers.