Traditional Chinese Medicine Nursing Intervention in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease With Gastrointestinal Dysfunction: Bibliometric and Knowledge Graph Analysis, 2015–2025

OBJECTIVE: To systematically analyse literature on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) nursing interventions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) complicated by gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, using bibliometric methods to identify research trends, thematic structures and future research directions. DESIGN: This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of relevant literature. DATA SOURCES: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. SELECTION OF STUDIES: Publications between 2015 and 2025 on TCM nursing for COPD with GI dysfunction were included, resulting in 1,563 publications after duplicate removal. DATA EXTRACTION: Bibliographic data were extracted and analysed using CiteSpace, VOSviewer and bibliometrix (R). RESULTS: Annual publication volume exhibited steady growth, peaking in 2024. China emerged as the primary research contributor, collaborating extensively with the USA, Australia and European nations. Institutional analysis revealed key research centres predominantly located in China, with increasing international cooperation. Core authors, such as Chen Wang and Ke Huang, significantly influenced research collaboration networks. Major thematic clusters included pulmonary rehabilitation, quality-of-life improvement, gut-lung interactions and molecular mechanisms. Landmark references reflected the growing integration of TCM nursing into conventional COPD care and the increasing attention on patient-centred outcomes. CONCLUSION: Research in this niche is increasingly oriented towards rehabilitation-focused integrative care and mechanism-informed perspectives (gut-lung axis). Future studies should prioritise a GI-inclusive core outcome set, standardised reporting of nursing-deliverable TCM modalities and pragmatic/hybrid effectiveness-implementation designs aligned with gut-lung-related hypotheses.