Hye-Sun Shin
Perinatal Journal - 2025;33(3):97-105
This study aimed to examine nursing research on infertile women in Korea published over the past two decades, with a focus on identifying the knowledge structure and key concepts and informing future directions for nursing research and practice. This study employed an integrative review guided by the topic-centered literature review framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley. Nursing studies related to infertile women published in Korean academic journals between 2005 and 2025 were identified through searches of major Korean databases, including RISS, KMbase, KoreaMed, and NDSL. A total of 20 studies were selected and analyzed according to research characteristics, study design, key variables, and thematic domains. The analysis indicated that nursing research on infertile women in Korea was organized into four primary thematic domains: treatment experience-focused studies, studies addressing psychological and emotional factors, quality-of-life-related studies, and studies examining sociocultural factors. The most frequently examined core concepts were depression, stress, spousal support, quality of life, and resilience, in descending order. Most studies were concentrated on descriptive survey designs. Nursing research on infertile women in Korea has mainly concentrated on psychological and emotional issues. Future research should broaden its focus to include practice-oriented approaches such as intervention development, longitudinal research, and mixed-methods designs. This study is significant in that it provides a systematic overview of the knowledge structure of nursing research on infertile women.
