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. 2019 Apr 9;19(Suppl 2):50.
doi: 10.1186/s12911-019-0757-4.

Discovering thematic change and evolution of utilizing social media for healthcare research

Xieling Chen  1 , Yonghui Lun  2 , Jun Yan  3 , Tianyong Hao  4 , Heng Weng  5
Affiliations

Discovering thematic change and evolution of utilizing social media for healthcare research

Xieling Chen et al. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. .

Abstract

Background: Social media plays a more and more important role in the research of health and healthcare due to the fast development of internet communication and information exchange. This paper conducts a bibliometric analysis to discover the thematic change and evolution of utilizing social media for healthcare research field.

Methods: With the basis of 4361 publications from both Web of Science and PubMed during the year 2008-2017, the analysis utilizes methods including topic modelling and science mapping analysis.

Results: Utilizing social media for healthcare research has attracted increasing attention from scientific communities. Journal of Medical Internet Research is the most prolific journal with the USA dominating in the research. Overly, major research themes such as YouTube analysis and Sex event are revealed. Themes in each time period and how they evolve across time span are also detected.

Conclusions: This systematic mapping of the research themes and research areas helps identify research interests and how they evolve across time, as well as providing insight into future research direction.

Keywords: Healthcare research; Science mapping; Social media; Thematic detection; Thematic evolution; Topic modelling.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Publication count and citation count
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
AP clustering result for the publications during the year 2008–2017 (Terms in bold and italic type donate exemplar for each cluster)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Strategic diagrams for the period 2008–2009
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Strategic diagrams for the period 2010–2011
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Strategic diagrams for the period 2012–2013
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Strategic diagrams for the period 2014–2015
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Strategic diagrams for the period 2016–2017
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Thematic evolution of the research field (2008–2017)
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
The TWEET thematic area (2008–2017)
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
The FACEBOOK thematic area (2011–2017)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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