Mapping the Nursing Literature on Postoperative Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis.

Purpose: To evaluate nursing research related to postoperative pain through bibliometric analysis and to provide a structured macroscopic overview of the characteristics and development of this research.

Design: A bibliometric analysis.

Methods: The Web of Science database was selected for the bibliometric analysis study, with data included up to August 30, 2024. The analysis was performed using the "biblioshiny" application available in the Bibliometrics R package.

Findings: A total of 3,410 nursing articles on postoperative pain were published in 976 sources from 1975 to 2024. The journals with the highest number of publications were Pain Management Nursing, Journal of Perianesthesia Nursing, and Journal of Clinical Nursing. According to Bradford's law-based analyses, there are 26 journals in the first zone, 168 journals in the second zone, and 782 journals in the third zone. Wang J, Kehlet J, and He HK were the most prolific authors. The study found that the distribution of authors did not follow Lotka's law. Developed countries were the most prolific in nursing publications on postoperative pain, and these countries had the highest number of collaborative publications. Keywords focused on "management," "surgery," "nursing," and "pain," with "management," "surgery," and "postoperative pain" being the most concentrated themes in the thematic map. Gaps in the literature included "education," "women," "mortality," "programme," and "rehabilitation," while key themes requiring further development were identified as "pain," "analgesia," "anaesthesia," "quality of life," "risk factors," and "risk."

Conclusions: This bibliometric study provides a comprehensive and integrative review of the global literature on postoperative pain in nursing.