Trends in research on clinical reasoning in nursing over the past 20 years: a bibliometric analysis

Purpose: Clinical reasoning is an essential component of nursing education. This study aimed to identify the trends in research on clinical reasoning in nursing over a 22-year period.Methods: The Web of Science Core Collection was used as the target database, with the search terms “clinical reasoning,” “clinical judgement,” and “clinical decision.” The scope of the search included the subject, abstract, author’s keywords, and Keywords Plus for each article. Our literature search included journal articles from 2000 to 2021, with the subject area restricted to nursing. A total of 4,675 articles met the inclusion criteria after the removal of duplicates using digital object identifier. We used bibliometric analyses to conduct quantitative and statistical analyses of publication trends, the journals and countries with the most publications, the most productive authors, the most globally cited documents, and the most frequent keywords.Results: In nursing, studies related to clinical reasoning have increased significantly since 2000. The most prolific country has been the United States. The journal with the most publications was the Journal of Clinical Nursing. The most productive author was Considine J, with 23 publications. The most widely cited author was Tanner CA, with 614 citations. The most frequent keywords in the literature related to clinical reasoning were “care,” “nurses,” and “decision-making,” in that order.Conclusion: This study examined the quantitative analysis and statistics of publications related to clinical reasoning in nursing in the past 20 years using bibliographic information. This study can help guide future research on clinical reasoning for nurse educators.