Development of critical care nursing research in Saudi Arabia: 10 years' perspective

Nursing research is a scientific method that provides evidence to support nursing practices. Investigation of the critical care nursing research in Saudi Arabia has not been well established. This review aims to examine the numbers, and the characteristics of PubMed-cited critical care nursing articles contributed from Saudi Arabia over the past decade. We conducted a PubMed search to analyze nursing publications in the field of critical care published or contributed in Saudi Arabia for over 10 years (2010–2019). We investigated the number of publications per year, specialty, study design, journal impact factor, and international collaboration. A total of 94 critical care nursing publications were included in this review. International collaborations were noted in 49 (52.1%) articles. The majority 53 (56.4%) of the critical care nursing publications were related to the nursing field and 66 (70.2%) of these articles were classified as clinical practice topics. Observation cohort study was the most used study design 64 (68.1%). The median impact factor for the journals of these publications was 1.76 (1.48, 2.52). Despite the lower rate of published researches, critical care nursing research in Saudi Arabia is increasing over the years. International collaborations had contributed dramatically in the published articles. Developing local strategy for critical care nursing research and promoting local and international collaboration to conduct and use research according to the critical care nursing priority are also warranted. More interventional nursing researches are needed in critical care settings in Saudi Arabia.