Pediatric Nursing and Nasogastric Tube Care: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Patterns and Themes on a Small Corpus.

Abstract

Background: Bibliometrics plays a critical role in supporting decision-making within the scientific community. It is widely used to evaluate the merit of applications for academic positions and to assess the standing of journals and institutions. This bibliometric analysis is aimed at identifying the growth and trends of nasogastric tube (NGT) research in pediatric settings, evaluating source productivity, and examining the scholarly impact of NGT research.

Methods: We conducted a bibliometric analysis of pediatric NGT nursing literature indexed (search executed 02 March 2024; updated 10 September 2025). Records were retrieved from Scopus and analyzed with Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny (R). To enhance interpretability with a modest corpus, we reported year-normalized citations, h-/g-/m-indices, and used fractional counting for co-authorship and country analyses. We mapped co-citation, bibliographic coupling, co-word/thematic evolution, and performed robustness checks (parameter thresholds, field restrictions, and time-window trims).

Results: Seventy-nine publications were identified. Annual production showed peaks in 2001, 2007, and 2018, with one publication in 2025. The most cited paper was ASPEN Safe Practices for Enteral Nutrition Therapy by Boullata et al., which had 335 citations as of 2025. The United States emerged as the leading contributor, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada.

Conclusion: Pediatric NGT research has expanded and diversified over the past 4 decades. The findings highlight the need for sustained investment and stronger international collaboration to improve clinical outcomes and drive innovation in pediatric healthcare. Findings should be interpreted with caution given the niche scope and corpus size, although sensitivity analyses suggested stable high-level patterns.