Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze trends in published articles from the Journal of Korean Gerontological Nursing (JKGN) over the past 6 years 1) to examine use of nursing theories and 2) to provide recommendations for future gerontolgical nursing studies. Methods: An analysis was done of 153 articles published in JKGN from 2010 to 2015. The analysis focused on research methodology, key words, and nursing theories. Descriptive statistics were used to examine frequency distribution of research methods and key words. Qualitative analysis was utilized to analyze application of nursing theories. Results: For the majority of articles quantitative analysis (87.6%) was used and among meta-paradigm concepts, the most frequently used keyword was health. Only 12 (7.8%) out of 153 articles provided a theoretical framework from nursing or another discipline. Conclusion: The results show that the application of theory was limited in the published articles in JKGN over the past 6 years. Therefore, promoting theory application in gerontological nursing research is necessary for the development of unique nursing knowledge. Additionally, for improvements in the nursing discipline, especially gerontological nursing, there is a need to encourage nurses doing research to utilize a variety of research methodologies and methods of data analysis.