# Research Topics and Trends in MIMIC‐IV: A Large ICU Database Relevant for Critical Care Nursing

## TL;DR

This paper maps research themes in the MIMIC-IV ICU database from 2021–2024, highlighting topics relevant to critical care nursing and data-driven decision-making.

## Contribution

This is the first scoping review of MIMIC-IV research themes, emphasizing their relevance to nursing practice and clinical workflows.

## Key findings

- Dominant research areas include mortality prediction, sepsis, and acute kidney injury.
- Themes are directly relevant to nursing-sensitive outcomes and bedside decision-making.
- The study offers a structured evidence base for guiding future data-driven nursing research.

## Abstract

The Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care‐IV (MIMIC‐IV) clinical database has become a central resource for data‐driven critical care research, enabling advances in clinical informatics, machine learning and nursing science. Despite its rapid uptake, no prior study has provided a transparent, methodologically grounded, bibliometrics‐based overview of MIMIC‐IV‐related research output.

This paper aims to map the major research themes associated with the MIMIC‐IV database (2021–2024) and to evaluate their relevance to critical care nursing research and practice.

A study of 1150 publications retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (SCI‐Expanded). Explicit search strategies, front‐page filtering and publication counts were used to identify and analyse keyword‐based research themes.

Keyword analyses identified mortality prediction, sepsis, acute kidney injury, intensive care workflows and machine learning as dominant research areas, many of which are directly relevant to nursing‐sensitive outcomes and bedside clinical decision‐making.

This review provides the first focused mapping of research themes within MIMIC‐IV publications. These findings clarify the thematic landscape of current MIMIC‐IV‐based research and underscore topics of particular importance to critical care nursing.

MIMIC‐IV supports the generation of evidence on essential nursing concerns. Recognising global research patterns enables nurses, clinicians and informatics teams to identify emerging tools, prioritise data‐driven competencies and translate large‐scale analytics into improved ICU care and patient outcomes.

What is known about the topic
○MIMIC‐IV is widely used in critical care research, particularly for studying outcomes such as mortality, sepsis and acute kidney injury through data‐driven methods.○Previous studies have demonstrated the value of large ICU databases for developing predictive models and supporting clinical decision‐making.○Although some MIMIC‐IV research addresses nursing‐sensitive outcomes and clinical workflows, these areas have not been systematically mapped.
What this paper adds
○This study provides the first focused scoping review of MIMIC‐IV publications (2021–2024), identifying major research themes and trends.○It demonstrates the strong relevance of dominant MIMIC‐IV research topics to critical care nursing practice and bedside decision‐making.○The findings offer a structured evidence base to guide nurses, clinicians and informatics teams in prioritising future data‐driven research and competencies.

What is known about the topic
○MIMIC‐IV is widely used in critical care research, particularly for studying outcomes such as mortality, sepsis and acute kidney injury through data‐driven methods.○Previous studies have demonstrated the value of large ICU databases for developing predictive models and supporting clinical decision‐making.○Although some MIMIC‐IV research addresses nursing‐sensitive outcomes and clinical workflows, these areas have not been systematically mapped.

MIMIC‐IV is widely used in critical care research, particularly for studying outcomes such as mortality, sepsis and acute kidney injury through data‐driven methods.

Previous studies have demonstrated the value of large ICU databases for developing predictive models and supporting clinical decision‐making.

Although some MIMIC‐IV research addresses nursing‐sensitive outcomes and clinical workflows, these areas have not been systematically mapped.

What this paper adds
○This study provides the first focused scoping review of MIMIC‐IV publications (2021–2024), identifying major research themes and trends.○It demonstrates the strong relevance of dominant MIMIC‐IV research topics to critical care nursing practice and bedside decision‐making.○The findings offer a structured evidence base to guide nurses, clinicians and informatics teams in prioritising future data‐driven research and competencies.

This study provides the first focused scoping review of MIMIC‐IV publications (2021–2024), identifying major research themes and trends.

It demonstrates the strong relevance of dominant MIMIC‐IV research topics to critical care nursing practice and bedside decision‐making.

The findings offer a structured evidence base to guide nurses, clinicians and informatics teams in prioritising future data‐driven research and competencies.