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. 2019 Jun 7:7:e7115.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.7115. eCollection 2019.

Emerging trends and knowledge structure of epilepsy during pregnancy research for 2000-2018: a bibliometric analysis

Minglu Wang  1 , Weitao Li  1 , Yuying Tao  1 , Limei Zhao  1
Affiliations

Emerging trends and knowledge structure of epilepsy during pregnancy research for 2000-2018: a bibliometric analysis

Minglu Wang et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Background: Epilepsy during pregnancy presents a unique set of challenges for pregnant women, the fetus, and the health care community. As research in this area advances rapidly, it is critical to keep up with the emerging trends and key turning points of the development of the domain knowledge. This study aimed to construct a series of science maps to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the intellectual landscape and research frontiers in the field of epilepsy during pregnancy research.

Methods: All publications were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Bibliometric analysis was used to analyze the scientific research outputs, including journals, countries/regions, institutions, authors (cited authors), intellectual base and research hotspots.

Results: A total of 2,225 publications related to epilepsy during pregnancy were identified as published between 2000 and 2018. The overall trend of the number of publications showed a fluctuating growth from 59 articles in 2000 to 198 in 2018. Neurology was the leading journal in the field of epilepsy and pregnancy research both in terms of impact factor score (8.055) and H-index value (77). The US retained its leading position and exerted a pivotal influence in this area. The University of Melbourne was identified as a good research institution for research collaboration. Prof. Pennell and Tomson have made great achievements in this area, and Prof. Tomson laid a foundation for the development of this domain. The keyword "neonatal seizures" ranked first in research hotspots, and the keyword "autism spectrum disorders (ASD)" ranked first in research frontiers.

Conclusions: Epilepsy during pregnancy is a fascinating and rapid development of subject matter. A more recent emerging trend focused on comprehensive management of pregnant and lactating women, evaluation of the safety and efficacy of newer antiepileptic drugs. The keywords "management issue," "brain injury," "meta-analysis," "in utero exposure," and "ASD" were the latest research frontiers and should be closely observed.

Keywords: Antiepileptic drugs; CiteSpace; Epilepsy; Pregnancy; Scientometrics; Visualization.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Flow chart of literature screening included in this study.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Publication outputs related to epilepsy during pregnancy research.
(A) The number of annual publications and (B) growth trends of the top 10 countries/regions.
Figure 3
Figure 3. The distribution of countries/regions and institutions.
(A) The network map of countries/regions that involved in epilepsy during pregnancy research and (B) the network map of institutions that involved in epilepsy during pregnancy research.
Figure 4
Figure 4. The dual-map overlay of journals related to epilepsy during pregnancy research.
The graphics corresponding to the citing journals and the cited journals were located on the left and right of the network map, respectively. The blue labels represent the disciplines covered by the journal, the lines on the map start from the left and end on the right, representing the citation links. The ellipses of different size in the graph show the number of articles on their vertical axis and the number of authors on their horizontal axis.
Figure 5
Figure 5. The distribution of authors contributed to epilepsy during pregnancy research.
(A) The network map of productive authors and (B) The network map of co-cited authors.
Figure 6
Figure 6. The analysis of references involved in epilepsy during pregnancy research.
(A) The network map of co-citation reference, (B) the network map of co-citation clusters, and (C) the timeline view of co-citation clusters.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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