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Subfield · Nursing

Issues, ethics and legal aspects research

Issues, ethics and legal aspects is a subfield of Nursing. Science Explorer counts 36k research works in it since 1950. 10.2% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: branch of philosophy that systematizes, defends, and recommends concepts of right and wrong conduct.

Research works
36k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3.7k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.2%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
2
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+8%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
46% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Issues, ethics and legal aspects

This ranks research output and citation impact. It says nothing about the quality of diagnosis, treatment or care.

Which countries lead Issues, ethics and legal aspects research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil rank highest in Issues, ethics and legal aspects. By volume, the United States and Brazil publish the most (1.7k and 587 works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 0.80× citation excellence · 1.66× journals · 100% breadth 8.7% top 10% · 1.4k works
  2. 2 United Kingdom #2 all time 0.88× citation excellence · 1.41× journals · 100% breadth 12.2% top 10% · 206 works
  3. 3 Brazil #6 all time 1.17× citation excellence · 0.32× journals · 100% breadth 3.6% top 10% · 508 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 3 countries ranked in Issues, ethics and legal aspects. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Issues, ethics and legal aspects

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.7k works
  2. 2 Brazil 587 works
  3. 3 United Kingdom 240 works
  4. 4 Türkiye 223 works
  5. 5 China 201 works
  6. 6 Canada 183 works
  7. 7 Australia 145 works
  8. 8 Indonesia 121 works
  9. 9 Spain 120 works
  10. 10 India 113 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 46.4%Brazil: 16.3%United Kingdom: 6.7%Türkiye: 6.2%6 others listed: 24.5%46%largest
United States1,670 · 46.4%Brazil587 · 16.3%United Kingdom240 · 6.7%Türkiye223 · 6.2%6 others listed882 · 24.5%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Issues, ethics and legal aspects research?

By volume in 2022-now, Universidade de São Paulo publishes the most Issues, ethics and legal aspects research, followed by Harvard University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Universidade de São PauloBrazil 27 works
  2. 2 Harvard UniversityUnited States 27 works
  3. 3 University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 24 works
  4. 4 Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do SulBrazil 21 works
  5. 5 University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 20 works
  6. 6 Universidade Federal FluminenseBrazil 19 works
  7. 7 Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do NorteBrazil 18 works
  8. 8 Universidade Federal de Santa CatarinaBrazil 18 works
  9. 9 University of TorontoCanada 17 works
  10. 10 Health AffairsUnited States 17 works

Who are the leading researchers in Issues, ethics and legal aspects?

Counting only their work in Issues, ethics and legal aspects, Beatrice Jean Kalisch, Virginia A. Henderson and Linda H. Aiken have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Beatrice Jean Kalisch United States · #53,701 worldwide overall 11.0 of 33 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Virginia A. Henderson United States · #225,113 worldwide overall 9.1 of 16 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Linda H. Aiken United States · #6,102 worldwide overall 9.2 of 20 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 David Westfall Bates United States · #12,274 worldwide overall 8.2 of 14 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Suzanne R. Bakken United States · #209,758 worldwide overall 9.4 of 28 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Marjory Gordon United States · #638,198 worldwide overall 8.7 of 22 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Marlene Kramer United States · #271,633 worldwide overall 8.2 of 12 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Margaret A. Newman United States · #640,003 worldwide overall 7.1 of 13 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Maxim Topaz United States · #101,257 worldwide overall 7.2 of 14 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Afaf Ibrahim Meleis United States · #339,389 worldwide overall 7.4 of 18 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Issues, ethics and legal aspects alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 96,926 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Issues, ethics and legal aspects researchers

What are the most cited papers in Issues, ethics and legal aspects?

The most cited paper in Issues, ethics and legal aspects is "Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis" (Hsiu-Fang Hsieh, Sarah Elizabeth Shannon, 2005), with 45,237 citations. Next come "Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness" (21,197) and "Content analysis and thematic analysis: Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study" (8,584).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis Hsiu-Fang Hsieh, Sarah Elizabeth Shannon · Qualitative Health Research 4 Oct 2005 45,237
2 Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness Ulla Hällgren Graneheim, Berit M Lundman · Nurse Education Today 7 Nov 2003 21,197
3 Content analysis and thematic analysis: Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study Mojtaba Vaismoradi, Hannele E. Turunen, Terese Elisabet Bondas · Nursing and Health Sciences Open access 11 Mar 2013 8,584
4 Nursing Research Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice Fiona Timmins · Nurse Education in Practice 17 Apr 2013 5,596
5 Is the CVI an acceptable indicator of content validity? Appraisal and recommendations Denise F. Polit, Cheryl Tatano Beck, Steven V. Owen · Research in Nursing & Health 24 Jul 2007 5,253
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Issues, ethics and legal aspects research done?

The largest centres of Issues, ethics and legal aspects research in 2022-now are São Paulo (Brazil), London (United Kingdom), New York (United States) and Washington D.C. (United States). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Silver Spring, Natal and Fortaleza.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 São PauloBrazil 87 works
  2. 2 LondonUnited Kingdom 75 works
  3. 3 New YorkUnited States 68 works
  4. 4 Washington D.C.United States 62 works
  5. 5 BostonUnited States 53 works
  6. 6 Rio de JaneiroBrazil 47 works
  7. 7 IstanbulTürkiye 45 works
  8. 8 PhiladelphiaUnited States 44 works
  9. 9 ChicagoUnited States 43 works
  10. 10 SeoulSouth Korea 43 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Silver SpringUS · 25.3 works23×
  2. NatalBR · 20.1 works8.8×
  3. FortalezaBR · 34.9 works8.5×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Issues, ethics and legal aspects than the world average.

See Issues, ethics and legal aspects on the map

Issues, ethics and legal aspects research by country

The best places for Issues, ethics and legal aspects research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Issues, ethics and legal aspects?

Among universities, judged by research, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and University of California, San Francisco score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 13.32%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of Pennsy…Harvard UniversityUniversity of MichiganUniversity of Califo…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Harvard UniversityUnited States 80.9- (#1)13.5%1.9×27 -10.7%
2University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 70.4- (#2)17.2%4.2×20 +4.2%
3University of California, San FranciscoUnited States 50.7- (#3)7.0%2.8×9 +29.4%
4University of MichiganUnited States 50.6- (#4)12.0%1.9×13 +33.5%
5Columbia UniversityUnited States 50.4- (#5)25.7%2.7×14 +0.5%
6University of TorontoCanada 41.1- (#7)12.7%1.9×17 +2.4%
7University of WashingtonUnited States 38.9- (#6)9.0%2.3×12 +40.6%
8King Saud UniversitySaudi Arabia 35.1-22.6%2.5×11 +187.5%
9University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 32.9- (#8)8.3%3.0×24 -31.9%
10Universidade de São PauloBrazil 26.5- (#14)5.2%3.0×27 +9.9%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Issues, ethics and legal aspects, country by country

Is Issues, ethics and legal aspects research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 8% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Nursing Diagnosis and Documentation and Nursing Education, Practice, and Leadership.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Issues, ethics and legal aspects as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.021% in 2024.

still counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Issues, ethics and legal aspects0.023% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Issues, ethics and legal aspects over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Issues, ethics and legal aspects10.6% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

What does Issues, ethics and legal aspects include?

Discussion

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