To explore the research hotspots and trends in the field of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) Classification System at home and abroad based on visual analysis methods.

Chinese literatures on nursing diagnosis included in CNKI, VIP and Wanfang databases from January 1981 to May 2022 were searched, and English literatures included in Web of Science from January 1973 to May 2022 were retrieved. Using bibliometrics and CiteSpace software, statistical analysis were made on the number of publications, journals, authors, institutions and keywords of relevant literatures.

A total of 487 Chinese literatures and 494 English literatures were included. The peak of the number of Chinese literature was in 1999-2003, and the amount of English literatures published from 2008 to the present showed a steady upward trend. The cooperation between domestic authors and institutions was poor, while the cooperation network between foreign authors and institutions was close. Keywords analysis of Chinese and English literatures showed that research topics focus on clinical application research, NANDA applied method research and nursing teaching research. Foreign research hotspots lied in proposing new nursing diagnosis and content validity verification, and Chinese research hotspots focused on the application promotion, application status analysis of NANDA and localization of nursing diagnostic terminology system.

The research of nursing diagnosis abroad is relatively mature, which can provide reference for the research of nursing diagnosis in China. It is suggested that cooperation and communication between authors and institutions in different regions should be strengthened in the future, and the research content should be further refined and deepened to carry out higher quality research.