Global librometric analysis of research on Ascaris lumbricoides and its relationship to nursing practices associated with health education

Abstract

It is estimated that approximately 820 million people are infected with Ascaris lumbricoides, and ascariasis infections are over 1.33 million, which is worrying as it can lead to morbidity by impairing the consumption of nutrients, as well as digestion and absorption due to intestinal obstruction. Knowing what research has been done on the subject is important for thinking about future steps to control and prevent helminths and their pathology. Evaluating international participation in research on A. lumbricoides with a view to highlighting the subject and associating these results with nursing practices related to health education, in order to help identify important aspects of the disease caused by this pathogen and to draw up educational interventions in communities, as well as obtaining support for future research. This is a descriptive, bibliometric study with a quantitative approach, carried out in five steps: research designer, compilation of bibliometric data, data analysis, data visualization and interpretation of results. To retrieve the data, scientific articles were searched for in the Web of Science™ (WoS) database. The search term used was "Ascaris lumbricoides". All the information available was downloaded in text file format for analysis using the RStudio Desktop software, linked to the R software (v.4.2.1). The Bibliometrix R package and its complementary graphical web interface, Biblioshiny, and the VOSviewer software were used for analysis. We analyzed 740 articles on A. lumbricoides, published between 1945 and 2023, in 324 scientific journals; Parasitology, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Experimental Parasitology were the journals that ranked first for publications on the subject, and the Journal of Cell Biology had the most cited article to date. It was observed that the years that produced the most were 2010 and 2011, both with 17 articles, with the peak number of citations being 510 per year, occurring in 2013. The United States is at the top of the article production ranking, and is also the country with the most collaborations, with Brazil in second place. It was possible to identify global research trends on A. lumbricoides, and it was shown that there is little research on the subject. In the long term, the data obtained can support further research and the development of strategies aimed at both prevention and the control and management of cases of infection by the parasite, on an ongoing basis, through health education; in this regard, nursing professionals are fundamental, as they are the main agents dispersing knowledge to prevent diseases such as ascariasis in the low-income population.