Background Oral health is a key indicator of overall health, well-being and quality of life. The oral health status of the elderly will decline with age, which results in serious consequences and bring heavy medical and economic burdens to the country and society. With the aggravation of population aging process, more and more attention has been paid to the oral health problems of the elderly in mainland China, the number of studies focusing on oral care for the elderly is increasing year by year, and many research papers have been published in journals. However, no scholar has conducted bibliometric analysis in this field so far. The purpose of this study is to analyze the status, hotspots and trends of research on oral care for the elderly in mainland China in the past 20 years through bibliometrics, which aims to provide new ideas and targets for future clinical work and research. Methods Relevant literature from January 2002 to May 2022 were retrieved from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Web of Science, and PubMed. NoteExpress 3.5.0.9054, Co-Occurrence 12.6 and CiteSpace 6.1.R2 were used to analyze bibliometric features in terms of year of publication, journal of publication, authors, institution and keywords. Results A total of 716 related articles were obtained. Data analysis revealed that the number of publications shows an increasing trend over time, only 2017–2021, 309 papers were published, accounting for 43.2% of the total number of publications. A total of 238 articles were published in Science Citation Index journals or Chinese core journals, accounting for 33.2% of the total number of articles, and only a few core journals among the top 10 journals. The study of oral health-related quality of life in the elderly is a hot research topic. There is a lack of research on the elderly living in elderly care facilities. Conclusion The present study provides an in-depth understanding of oral care in the elderly in mainland China. The study showed the current research status, hotspots and trends of this field, and future research direction is prospected.

Population ageing is one of the significant social transformations of the 21st century which poses healthcare challenges for caregivers and creates an enormous global burden in social economy. As reported in China's seventh National Census on 12 May 2021, the population aged 60 and over is 264 million, constituting 18.70% of the total population, of which the population aged 65 and over is 191 million, accounting for 13.50% of the national total population (Tu et al., 2021). It is expected that there will be 365 million aged 65+ Chinese by 2050, a number representing 26.1% of the country's total population. In addition, of this ageing population, 115 million are expected to reach the age of 80 and 0.6 million are expected to become centenarians (Fang et al., 2020).

Background: To alleviate the burden of aging, China has built many nursing homes and hired many people with no prior caregiving experience. However, there is little professional training program for junior caregivers, and standard programs are required to train those new to improve the quality of care. This study aims to develop and implement a training program for junior elderly caregivers based on the Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model. Objectives: This study aimed to develop a standardized training program based on the CIPP model for junior elderly caregivers in nursing homes. Methods: A literature review, interviews with 208 junior elderly caregivers in 6 nursing homes, and semi-structured interviews with 8 clinical experts were conducted to develop an initial training framework. Then, the two-round Delphi method was employed to get a consensus on the framework through an online questionnaire. Results: A two-round Delphi expert consultation was done, and a consensus on four domains and 14 secondary items, and 66 tertiary training items of the professional framework were achieved. The framework domains included training objectives (3 secondary items and 20 tertiary items), training management (5 secondary items and 13 tertiary items), training content(3 secondary items and 27 tertiary items) and training evaluation(3 secondary items and 6 tertiary items). Conclusion: This CIPP-based training program offers guidelines for junior caregivers in nursing homes. Future research should focus on the length of the program and its long-term effects to prepare qualified junior elderly caregivers.