Research focus and emerging trends of cancer-related fatigue in nursing arena: A bibliometric analysis from 2012 to 2021.

Background: To explore distributed characteristics and identify research focus and emerging trends related to cancer-related fatigue (CRF) in the nursing field.

Methods: Data were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database between January 2012 and December 2021 using an advanced search strategy. Data were extracted and analyzed using CiteSpace and Microsoft Excel.

Results: A total of 967 articles were included in this study. The number of published nursing studies on CRF has increased with slight fluctuations. Keyword co-occurrence analysis and timeline view indicated that CRF is closely related to quality of life, and there is a correlation between CRF and other symptoms. Moreover, increasing attention has been paid to CRF nursing interventions. The assessment tools and their different language versions, risk factors and reviews of CRF were the research frontiers in recent years with citation bursts.

Conclusions: In the field of nursing, the focus of CRF research is still on risk factors, adverse outcomes and nursing management. Assessment tools will continue to be developed and additional risk factors will be studied in the future.