Objective To analyze the research literature of nursing assistants worldwide from 1942 to 2019

and to provide a basis for further improving the research level in this field. Methods Web of Science with its own literature analysis function

Excel

HistCite Pro 2.1

and CiteSpace 5.6.R3 were used to perform the visual analysis of nursing assistants’ research literature from the Web of Science core collection database. Results From 1942 to2019

a total of 2 871 studies were published

and the number of publications started to increase since 1990. The most productive country was the United States（1 202 publications

41.87%）; the most productive organization was the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention（56 publications）

and the most productive author was Jarvis WR（14 publications）. The hot research interest was occupational health in the public environment

followed by infection

health

and risk. Conclusion Nursing assistants have received extensive attention from scholars around the world

which has resulted in abundant research findings. However

the quality of current studies should be further improved and the research need to go deeper. In China

the research mainly focuses on the training and education of nursing assistants in nursing institution for the aged

skill improvement

and personnel management. It is necessary to pay more attention to the nursing assistants working in hospitals and their occupational health level.