Objective: To comb the thread and trend of critical care fields in China for nearly 15 years, analyze research frontiers, demonstrate research evolution paths, provide reference for researchers and clinicians to carry out related work. Methods: Using CiteSpace software and CNKI database to retrieve research literature about critical care from 2004 to 2018 in China for visual analysis. Results: A total of 3 049 valid articles were retrieved. The research frontiers were mainly about emergency and critical nursing, nursing quality management, intensive care, clinical teaching quality and ICU nurses. Research trends from critical care, critically ill patients, disease condition change, to quality control, family members, nursing skills, basic nursing, now gradually turned to humanized care, nursing strategies, sustainable human care concepts, evolution map showed that emerging trend was more active. Conclusions In last 15 years, research fields of critical care in China have evolved actively, exploring research frontiers, focus on important topics such as evidence-based nursing,humanistic care nursing concept, intensive care information system, and cluster management strategy, extending and deepening professional development of critical care.

Objective: To observe the effect of traditional Chinese medicine hot-ironing therapy at Shenque point on cancerous abdominal pain in advanced malignant tumors. Methods: Forty patients with cancerous abdominal pain who met the inclusion criteria were randomly divided into two groups, 20 in each group.The control group was treated with traditional Chinese medicine hot-ironing analgesic package at Shenque point, and the treatment group was treated with abdominal massage therapy on the basis of the control group. Both groups were treated continuously for 7 days. The degree of abdominal pain was assessed using a digital assessment scale, and the quality of life was assessed using a quality of life assessment scale. The time to remission of cancerous abdominal pain was observed during the treatment period. Results: After treatment, the NRS scores on the 3rd day (1.9 ± 0.6 vs. 2.4 ± 0.3, t=3.333), 5th day (1.0 ± 0.3 vs. 1.6 ± 0.5, t=4.602), 7th day (1.0 ± 0.6 vs. 2.4 ± 0.7, t=6.791), in the treatment group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P<0.01). The remission time of the treatment group was longer than that of the control group on the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th day after treatment, but there was no significant difference between the groups (t values were 0.243, 1.374, 0.185, 0.7284, P>0.05). The body function score in the treatment group (88.6 ± 13.7 vs. 77.0 ± 19.4, t=2.184) was significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). Conclusions The combination of traditional Chinese medicine hot-ironing package combined with pushing therapy can alleviate the pain level and improve the quality of life of patients with cancerous abdominal pain.