COVID-19 Publications in Family Medicine Journals in 2020: A PubMed-Based Bibliometric Analysis

Long COVID Research, 2020-2024: A PubMed-Based Bibliometric Analysis

Long COVID is a SARS-CoV-2 infection-associated chronic condition with great potential to impact health and socioeconomic outcomes. The research efforts to face the challenges related to long COVID have resulted in a substantial amount of publications, which warrants the need for bibliometric profiling. This is a large-scale PubMed-based bibliometric analysis of more than 390,000 COVID-19 publications. The overall aim was to update the profile of long COVID publications in comparison with the rest of the COVID-19 scientific literature through December 2024. The estimated proportion of long COVID publications was relatively low (2.3% of all COVID-19 publications), although the cumulative frequency (n = 8928) continues to pose a challenge for proper information management. Currently, "treatment" and "mechanism" appear to be the most predominant research topics in the long COVID literature. Interestingly, this evaluation revealed a distinctive profile of the long COVID literature, with a clear preponderance of "case report" and "mechanism" research topics when compared with other COVID-19 publications. This evaluation also identified and ranked the most prolific scientific journals in the production of long COVID-related publications. This study may improve the visibility of long COVID research and contribute to the management of the growing scientific knowledge on long COVID.

Coronavirus disease-2019 and orthopedics: A bibliometric analysis of the literature

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a dramatic impact on global health, with orthopedics among the most affected specialties. An increasing number of COVID-19-related orthopedic studies have been published. The purpose of this study was to analyze the orthopedic literature published during the COVID-19 pandemic to guide future research.

METHODS

The Scopus database was searched for relevant literature published between 2020 and 2022. The keywords used in the retrieval process were ("COVID-19" OR "Coronavirus" OR "2019-nCoV" OR "SARS-CoV-2" OR "Betacoronavirus" OR "novel coronavirus 2019" OR "novel coronavirus" OR "coronavirus-19" OR "COVID 19" OR "nCOV" OR "COVID-2019" OR "COVID 2019") and ("orthopedic" OR "orthopedics" OR "orthopedic" OR "orthopedical" OR "orthopedical" OR "orthopedics"). Spreadsheet software (Excel, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA) was used to analyze the top 10 cited authors, countries, journals, and articles. The top 5 publication types were also analyzed. VOSviewer (Center for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden, Netherlands) was used to network and visualize the literature.

RESULTS

A total of 1619 publications relevant to COVID-19 and orthopedics were reviewed. Among these publications, the most active country, author, and publication type included the United States, Vaishya R, and original articles, respectively. The most frequently used keywords were human, coronavirus disease-2019, pandemic, and orthopedics. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery American Volume was the most cited journal, whereas the greatest number of articles was published in the Journal of Clinical Orthopedics and Trauma.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides a perspective on the development of orthopedic publications during the COVID-19 pandemic and evidence for researchers worldwide to strengthen global cooperation in fighting the epidemic.

Global trends and future prospects of COVID-19 and physical activity: Bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND

Containment measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to drastic changes in daily life and effects on health behaviors such as decrease in physical activity (PA) levels. This study aims to present a general framework to researchers on COVID-19 and PA research in relation with changes in studies within years, current trend topics, gaps in the research field and possible future trends.

METHODS

A total of 1819 articles indexed in the WoS core collection database were analyzed according to publication year, citation, country and institution collaborations, coword, co-citation networks, concept-topic trends and topic clusters using bibliometric analysis.

RESULTS

The most productive country was the USA(n = 335), and the most productive institution was University of London in UK (n = 38). The most cited publication was the study by Ammar et al, (2020) (n = 188). In 2020, the most popular topics were PA and health meanwhile in 2021 behavior, lifestyle, social media and in 2022 habits, long COVID, sleep quality topics were in the foreground. Studies in 2023 focus on how COVID-19 affects PA habits and the associations between COVID-19-based anxiety and sleep patterns. These studies focused especially on effects of sport participation on life quality, diet, depression, mental health on young athletes, children, adolescent persons, older adult groups.

CONCLUSIONS

An important gap in the study area is research on effect of changing lifestyle due to pandemic on individuals and the society during the Post COVID-19 period. If benefits of PA will not be limited to only physical benefits and psychological emotional, cognitive and social benefits are also taken into consideration, it is important that researchers conduct long-term and widescale observations.

[Comment on articule "Bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on COVID-19 elaborated by staff of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social"]

In this letter to the editor, some doubts are expressed about the methodology used in the article Bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on COVID-19 elaborated by staff of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social with the purpose of clarifying them and strengthening the scientific rigor with which it was carried out the investigation. The replicability of the studies is essential for other researchers to be able to assess the quality of the study and the validity of its results, in addition to ensuring the transparency of the science.

Publications With Nephrological Themes Appearing Diachronically in the PubMed Bibliographical Database

OBJECTIVES

Nephrology in the last 50 years has undergone important scientific developments, which have formally revolutionized clinical practice, including renal biopsy, renal replacement therapy, and transplantation. The understanding of the pathogenesis and the clinical course of renal disease has also steadily improved, resulting in renewal of definitions, classifications, and therapeutics in nephrology. In this context, publications with nephrological content are also expanding. The aim of this bibliographic study was to analyze publications related to nephrology-specific key words in the PubMed database.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We included the key words "nephrology," "acute renal failure," "renal biopsy," "hemodialysis," "peritoneal dialysis," and "renal transplantation" as search terms in PubMed in May 2022. We also used the term "kidney" as an alternative to "renal."

RESULTS

"Nephrology" appeared 185 545 times in searches, with its appearance expanding in the past 3 decades since 1948. The term "acute renal failure" was found in 1932 in 1 publication and in a total number of 92 278 publications. Renal biopsy appeared since 1943 in 18 048 publications. "Hemodialysis" appeared in 182 730 citations, with the first in 1915. "Peritoneal dialysis" appeared in 32 266 citations for the first time in 1901 and in 1946 in human application. One publication on "renal transplantation" appeared in 1946, with 106 075 total publications related to renal transplantation.

CONCLUSIONS

We viewed a clear expansion of nephro-logical publications in the past decades. Hemodialysis remains the most frequently used term in nephrology-related publications. Historical analysis of the PubMed database is useful as a tool to understand the research and publication trends in nephrology, as we approach the new era of precision medicine.

Global Cluster Analysis and Network Visualization in Prosthetic Joint Infection: A Scientometric Mapping

OBJECTIVE

Prosthetic joint infection (PJI) is the main reason of failure of total joint arthroplasty (TJA). This study aimed to investigate the global trends and network visualization in research of PJI.

METHODS

Publications in PJI search during 1980-2022 were extracted from the Science Citation Index-Expanded of Web of Science Core Collection database (WoSCC). The source data was investigated and analyzed by bibliometric methodology. For network visualization, VOS viewer and R software was used to perform bibliographic coupling, co-citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence analysis and to predict the publication trends in PJI research.

RESULTS

There were 7288 articles included. The number of publications and relative research interests increased gradually per year globally. The USA made the highest contributions in the world and with the highest H-index and the most citations. Journal of Arthroplasty published the highest number of articles in this area. The Mayo Clinic, Thomas Jefferson University (Rothman Institute), Hospital Special Surgery and the Rush University were the most contributive institutions by network visualization. Included studies were divided into four clusters: bacterial pathogenic mechanism and antibacterial drugs study, TJA complications, risk factors and epidemiology of PJI, diagnosis of PJI, and revision surgical management. More articles in PJI could be published over the next few years.

CONCLUSION

The number of publications about PJI will be increasing dramatically based on the global trends and network visualization. The USA made the highest contributions in PJI. Diagnosis and revision management may be the next hot spots in this field.

COVID-19 burden, author affiliation and women's well-being: A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 related publications including focus on low- and middle-income countries

Background

Published literature documents tremendous gender inequities in the social, economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but less evidence has come from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and even less from LMIC-based authors. We examine whether a) COVID-19 burden and b) LMIC-based authorship were associated with academic publications related to COVID-19 and women's well-being in LMICs.

Methods

We reviewed academic articles on COVID-19 and women's well-being in LMICs published between February 2020 and May 2021 (n=1076 articles), using six electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, PsycInfo, EconLit, RePeC, NBER). Multilevel, mixed effects linear regressions assessed the relationships between each of our independent variables - a) COVID-19 burden (cases/100 population, deaths/100 population, deaths/cases) and b) author's country of primary affiliation, with publications related to COVID-19 and women's well-being, both overall and stratified by country income group.

Findings

Eight-eight percent of articles had lead and/or senior authors affiliated with in-country institutions. Linear mixed effect models indicate that COVID-19 cases and case fatality ratios in a country were significantly and positively associated with the number of publications related to COVID-19 and women's well-being, though these relationships were significant only in upper-middle income group countries in stratified analyses. LMIC lead and senior authorship were also significantly and positively associated with our outcome, after adjusting for COVID-19 burden.

Interpretation

While the majority of COVID-19 research examining women's well-being in LMICs in the first year and a half of the pandemic included country-affiliated author leadership, there were important gaps in representation. Findings highlight the importance of LMIC-based scholars to build local and gendered research in crises.

Funding

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-018007).

Eye-Related COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Production Indexed in Scopus

This paper analyzes, from a bibliometric viewpoint, those publications that relate COVID-19 and eye indexed in Scopus since the beginning of the pandemic, and it identifies the resulting main research lines. A bibliographic search in the Scopus database was conducted for publications that simultaneously include ocular and visual manifestations and aspects with COVID-19, from 1 January 2020 to 16 March 2021, and the obtained bibliographic information was processed with VOSviewer (v. 1.6.16). A total of 2206 documents were retrieved, and 60% were original articles. The USA published the most studies (24.6%). The retrieved documents had a total of 18,634 citations. The h index of the set of retrieved documents was 58. The Indian Journal of Ophthalmology was the most productive journal, while JAMA Neurology and The Lancet accounted for 20% of citations. Three keyword clusters representing hotspots in this field were identified. Eye-related COVID-19 research is an emerging field with plenty of scientific evidence whose growth is expected to increase as the aspects and manifestations of the disease, its treatment and the effect of vaccination on it become known.

Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Literature on Rheumatoid Arthritis-Associated Interstitial Lung Disease

Background

In recent years, the number of studies on rheumatoid arthritis-related interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD) has been increasing, which has led to many publications on this topic. Our purpose is to identify research trends in RA-ILD and analyze the most-cited RA-ILD-related high-quality scientific publications.

Methods

All publications on RA-ILD in the Core Collection database of Web of Science were searched. The publication year, country, institution, total citations, and journal were extracted and analyzed. We used VOSviewer software or an online bibliometric analysis platform for cooccurrence analysis of the keywords, institutions, and countries involved. The 100 most frequently cited RA-ILD publications were analyzed.

Results

In total, 596 publications related to RA-ILD were obtained. Over time, the frequency of RA-ILD publications has increased. Globally, the United States provides the most publications on RA-ILD (n = 195). The institution with the highest publication output was the Mayo Clinic (n = 43). The journal “Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases” published most with 93 articles and received 338 citations. A clinical description was the most common research topic in RA-ILD-related publications.

Conclusions

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of studies on RA-ILD, and related publications have increased rapidly. This study is the first bibliometric study of RA-ILD-related publications. It can be used as a guide for clinicians and can help researchers choose research directions of interest in this field.