We try to disclose how much the keywords of the papers from the Journal of the Korean Academy of Nursing coincide with MeSH terminologies and to understand the major subjects of the recent nursing research in Korea from keywords.

Keywords of journals were extracted and compared with MeSH terms. The frequency of the appearance of each keyword was sorted by a descending order.

Coincidence rate of 1,235 keywords with MeSH terms was 51.6%. Out of them, depression, elderly, stress, self efficacy, quality of life, exercise, middle-aged women, and women appeared most frequently in descending order.

Coincidence rate of the keywords with MeSH terms was at an acceptable level, however to improve it, the education of submitters and editorial board members are required, as well as the copy editor, to take a role in checking keywords. To infer the subjects of the research from keywords might well represent the recent topics of research work.