Abstract
Background: This study aimed to explore the intellectual landscape of the studies investigating the clinical application of enteral nutrition (EN) in patients with ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), and to identify thematic development trends and research frontiers in this area.Methods: Scientometric research was conducted by analyzing bibliographic records retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection Database dated between 1996 and 2018. Reference co-citation analysis, key words co-occurrence analysis and cooperation network analysis were performed using CiteSpace software.Results: A total of 124 valid records were included in the final dataset. It was found that early studies were mainly focused on the feeding pathways of EN among VAP patients. The risks associated with EN intervention in VAP patients, including gastric nutrition intolerance and aspiration pneumonia, were extensively investigated and reported. While aspiration pneumonia has remained a long-term active research area in the field of EN interventions for VAP patients, with recent research focused more on interventions aiming to improve EN support and to optimize the use of EN for VAP patients. It seems that clinical guidelines on EN interventions for VAP patients need to be established.Conclusion: The advantages of EN for VAP patients have been recognized but still require further investigation on standardizing the use. Strategic cooperation among hospital physicians, university researchers and industrial product developers is required to establish clinical guidelines and to continue developing innovative EN products to tackle VAP.
Highlights
Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) is a prevalent and serious disease caused by hospital infection
By combining reference co-citation analysis, key words co-occurrence analysis and cooperation network analysis, this study found that this research field has evolved from studying feeding pathways and risk factors, to exploring the optimization of enteral nutrition (EN) use in VAP patients
At the early development phase of this field, researchers generally agreed that clinical EN application had benefits for VAP patients based on findings from clinical experiments
Summary
Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) is a prevalent and serious disease caused by hospital infection. It usually happens to patients who have been mechanically ventilated for more than 48 h in an intensive care unit (ICU) (Torres et al, 2017). Previous studies showed that patients with VAP had longer durations of mechanical ventilation, ICU stay and hospitalization, compared to those without VAP. In the United States, the average hospitalization cost per VAP patient has increased by 40,000 USD. In Turkey, the average cost of ICU patients with VAP has increased fourfold (Torres et al, 2017). This study aimed to explore the intellectual landscape of the studies investigating the clinical application of enteral nutrition (EN) in patients with ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), and to identify thematic development trends and research frontiers in this area
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
