To understand and explore the status quo, hotspots and trends of hemodialysis care research at home and abroad over the past 10 years and to provide a theoretical basis for China's hemodialysis care research.

The literatures on hemodialysis care published at home and abroad from 2008 to 2017 were selected from Web of Science, CNKI and Wanfang databases. The number, regional distribution, status quo and hotspots of the publications over the past 10 years were analyzed with CiteSpaceV.

The number of publications on hemodialysis care abroad from 2008 and 2017 grew sustainably, while there were less papers on core journals at home and no significant changes were found in the number. The US took the leading role in hemodialysis care globally, with the most articles. Most of the papers published at home were attributed to nursing schools, and Guangdong Province preponderated significantly in the number. Hot topics abroad included outcome, vascular access, complication and humanistic psychology. Hot topics at home were similar to the ones abroad and mainly included quality care and training. Both researchers at home and abroad paid attention to evidence-based nursing. The research fronts abroad were psychological experience and formulation of standards, while the researchers at home focus on self-efficacy.

Compared with the research abroad, there is still room for the development of hemodialysis care research in China. We deepen our research by referring to hot topics and research fronts abroad as well as China's local situations and find that the major directions for China's hemodialysis care research is outcome, children, humanity, self-efficacy and training.

Dialysis; Nursing care; Hotspots; At home and abroad; Visual analysis