A study on research trends for gestational diabetes mellitus and breastfeeding: Focusing on text network analysis and topic modeling

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify core keywords and topic groups in the ‘Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and Breastfeeding’ field of research for better understanding research trends in the past 20 years. Methods: This was a text-mining and topic modeling study composed of four steps: 1) collecting abstracts, 2) extracting and cleaning semantic morphemes, 3) building a co-occurrence matrix, and 4) analyzing network features and clustering topic groups. Results: A total of 635 papers published between 2001 and 2020 were found in databases (Web of Science, CINAHL, RISS, DBPIA, RISS, KISS). Among them, 3,639 words extracted from 366 articles selected according to the conditions were analyzed by text network analysis and topic modeling. The most important keywords were 'exposure', ‘fetus’, ‘hypoglycemia’, 'prevention' and 'program'. Six topic groups were identified through topic modeling. The main topics of the study were ‘cardiovascular disease' and 'obesity'. Through the topic modeling analysis, six themes were derived: ‘cardiovascular disease’, ‘obesity’, ‘complication prevention strategy’, ‘support of breastfeeding’, ‘educational program’ and ‘management of GDM’. Conclusion: This study showed that over the past 20 years many studies have been conducted on complications such as cardiovascular diseases and obesity related to gestational diabetes and breastfeeding. In order to prevent complications of gestational diabetes and promote breastfeeding, various nursing interventions, including gestational diabetes management and educational programs for GDM pregnancies, should be developed in nursing fields.