Contribution of Italian Nursing Professors to International Literature: a 2000 – 2016 review

ABSTRACT Aims. To assess Italian nursing academics’ scientific activity by exploring their publications in international journals. Background. The scientific production of a discipline’s academics is a requisite for the university accreditation process and for employment in academic positions, and it can be used as an indicator of the maturity and importance of a given discipline in a country. Italian nursing academics’ scientific production has not been analyzed recently. Design. Quantitative descriptive study on an observation period of 16 years, from 2000 to 2016. Methods. All Italian full-time academics in the sector of General, Clinical and Pediatric Nursing Sciences were identified, based on selection criteria. All their publications in indexed international journals were systematically collected between November 2016 and February 2017. Results. Twenty-five Italian nursing academics were identified, and 450 of their publications met all our inclusion criteria, for a mean 18 publication per author (range 0-88). There was a steady growth in the number of publications over time. Sixty-five per cent of articles were published in nursing journals. Eighty-six per cent of the publications were on nursing topics, the most popular being clinical issues (53.8%). Eighty per cent of the publications were “applied research articles” and most of them adopted a quantitative approach with a descriptive study design. Hospitals and clinics were the most common settings studied, while patients and caregivers were the participants most often involved. Foreign co-authors contributed to 30% of the articles. Conclusion. Italian nursing academics contribute adequately to scientific production in the nursing sector.