Research status, hotspots and trends on oral care research in the elderly published from 2002 to 2022: A bibliometric analysis - A review article.
Jingwen Zhang, Yanqiu Weng, Mengting Qiao and 2 others
PMID 37247336WHAT IT FOUND
Most elderly oral care research in China focuses on hospital inpatients and general health education.
Very little examines long-term care facilities, where residents are at highest risk. Nurses should expect gaps in evidence for institutional care and rely on standardized basics.
Key findings
01The analysis included 716 articles, with a peak of 70 Chinese-language publications in 2018.
02Only three papers focused on elderly living in care facilities, accounting for 0.4% of the total literature.
03Research hotspots shifted toward quality of life and periodontitis, but most studies remain in non-core journals.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study only analyzed published literature, excluding grey literature or unpublished trials. It did not assess the quality or methods of the included studies, only their metadata (keywords, authors, journals). The search was limited to mainland China, so findings may not apply to other cultural or healthcare contexts. Data for 2022 was incomplete as the search ended in May of that year.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. No funding was received.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high volume of publications as evidence of effective interventions. This is a map of what was written, not a review of what works. The study did not evaluate the quality or outcomes of the 716 papers, so it cannot tell you which oral care techniques are clinically superior.