Global Trends and Hot-Spots in Research on Virtual Simulation in Nursing: A Bibliometric Analysis From 1999 to 2021

Background Virtual simulation has been widely used in nursing education and nursing training. This study aims to characterize the publications in terms of countries, institutions, journals, authors, collaboration relationships, and analyze the trends of virtual simulation in nursing research. Methods Publications regarding virtual simulation in nursing were retrieved from Web of Science core collection. Microsoft Excel 2010, VOSviewer were used to characterize the contributions of the authors, journals, institutions, and countries. The trends, hot-spots and knowledge network were analyzed by Citespace and VOSviewer. Results We identified 677 papers between 1999 and 2021. The number of publications grew slowly until 2019, after that, it got a sharp increase in 2020 and 2021. The USA, Canada and Australia were three key contributors to this field. Centennial College and University of San Paulo, University of Ottawa and Ryerson University were top major institutions with a larger number of publications. Verkuyl M was the most productive and highest cited author. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, Nurse Education Today, Journal of Nursing Education were the three productive journals. The foundational themes of virtual simulation research in nursing are “virtual learning during COVID-19, clinical nursing care, education in nurse practitioners, education technology”. Conclusion Virtual simulation in nursing field has attracted considerable attention during COVID-19 pandemic. The research hotspot is gradually shifting from clinical nursing care to studies of nursing education using different virtual simulation technologies