RESUMO
Objective To understand the status quo of foreign nursing leadership in recent 20 years,and compare and analyze the hotspots and trends of foreign nursing leadership.Methods The bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis were used for analyzing the literature of nursing leadership in PubMed from 1997 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2016,via Bicomb and gCLUTO softwares.Results A total of 482 articles were included.Bibliometric analysis showed that foreign nursing leadership literature number was increasing,which was mainly concentrated in the United States and England.The biclustering analysis showed that the research from 1997 to 2006 focused on patient safety and nursing leadership styles,education and training of nursing leadership,clinical nursing leadership models and nursing quality management;from 2007 to 2016,the research mainly focused on patient safety and nurses' psychological research,clinical nursing leadership theory,clinical nursing practice and competency training,and nnrses' role of leadership research.Conclusion The foreign nursing leadership theory has been developed well for its variety of topics and methods,and the object has been shifted from nursing administrators to clinical nurses.Future research should focus more on application of leadership in clinical nursing,and specialized leadership model and training system may be developed.