The Frequency of Massage Use in Nursing Research: Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis of Hotspots and Global Trends

•Massage research is particularly focused in the field of oncology.•The prominent topics are related to common symptoms in cancer patients such as pain and anxiety.•The authors who have contributed the most to massage research have primarily focused on managing symptoms in cancer patients.•Author and country collaborations in massage research are limited.•Multidisciplinary collaboration in massage research is important. The aim of the study was to examine the hotspots and global trends of massage in nursing research. Based on 241 articles published between 1993 and 2023 obtained from the Web of Science database, methods such as trend analysis and keyword frequency analysis were employed to analyze the evolution of research over time and identify key topics. Additionally, topic clustering of abstracts was conducted to examine thematic areas and connections within massage research. The analysis shows that the use of massage is prominent in specific fields such as oncology, pediatrics, gynecology, and obstetrics. An analysis of the most cited articles revealed that topics such as the effects of massage on cancer pain and anxiety and the use of complementary therapies in newborns were important. It was determined that the leading authors of massage research generally work in the fields of “massage,” “nursing,” “pain,” “aromatherapy,” “anxiety” and “complementary therapies.” Collaboration between authors and countries, which is important in terms of global knowledge sharing, is almost nonexistent. The results of the study show that massage research is particularly prominent in certain medical fields such as cancer and that studies on the effects of massage in these fields are important. Furthermore, the fact that the leading authors of massage research are often specialized in specific fields and that there is limited collaboration between authors plays an important role in determining the future directions of massage research and highlights the need to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.