Identifying Latent Topics and Trends in Premature Infant–Related Nursing Studies Using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation Method

Abstract

This study aimed to identify topics and within-topic core keywords in premature infant–related nursing studies published in Korean and international academic journals using topic modeling and to compare and analyze the trends in Korean and international studies. Journal databases were searched to extract nursing studies involving premature infants from 1998 to 2020. Journal databases included MEDLINE, Web of Science, CINAHL, and EMBASE for international studies and DBpia, the National Digital Science Library, the Korea Citation Index, and the Research Information Sharing Service for Korean studies. Abstracts from the selected 182 Korean and 2502 international studies were analyzed using NetMiner4.4.3e. In results, four similar topics (Korean vs international) were “pain intervention” versus “pain management”; “breast feeding practice” versus “breast feeding”; “kangaroo mother care”; and “parental stress” versus “stress & depression.” Two topics that appeared only in the international studies were “infection management” and “oral feeding & respiratory care.” Overall, the international studies dealt with diverse topics directly associated with premature. Korean studies mainly dealt with topics related to mothers of premature infants, whereas studies related to premature infants were insufficient. Nursing research in Korea needs to be expanded to research topics addressing premature infants.