Big Data in Nursing: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Big data will have a growing role in nursing scholarship requiring parallel growth in data competencies and literacies to benefit nursing practice, education, and policy. This article offers background information about big data and bibliometric analysis, and describes a study that analyzed published research focused on big data in nursing to evaluate trends and understand the current evidence on this topic. Scopus was used as the primary database to retrieve published articles. The study results and subsequent citation analysis of 64 articles from 2014 to 2020 determined the types and extent of literature on big data in nursing, which authors and journals publish big data research, and the origins of the studies that were reviewed. The majority of the articles included offered descriptive or review type scholarly contributions with a clinical practice focus and/or application. Our discussion suggests future directions for research, content about nurse involvement in big data important for nursing curricula, implications for policy action based on evidence, and our assessment of the state of the science. This analysis demonstrated strong interest in big data approaches in nursing literature but little application of these approaches was identified in the represented articles.