Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 21;19(6):3742.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19063742.

Global Trends and Research Hotspots in Long COVID: A Bibliometric Analysis

Hongxia Jin  1 , Lu Lu  1 , Haojun Fan  1
Affiliations

Global Trends and Research Hotspots in Long COVID: A Bibliometric Analysis

Hongxia Jin et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Long COVID is a condition distinguished by long-term sequelae that occur or persist after the convalescence period of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 experienced long COVID, which attracted the attention of researchers. This study aims to assess the pattern of long COVID research literature, analyze the research topics, and provide insights on long COVID. In this study, we extracted 784 publications from Scopus in the field of long COVID. According to bibliometric analysis, it is found that: developed countries in Europe and America were in leading positions in terms of paper productivity and citations. The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and the Journal of Clinical Medicine were leading journals in the perspective of publications count, and Nature Medicine had the highest number of citations. Author Greenhalgh T has the highest number of papers and citations. The main research topics were: pathophysiology, symptoms, treatment, and epidemiology. The causes of long COVID may be related to organ injury, inflammation, maladaptation of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) pathway, and mental factors. The symptoms are varied, including physical and psychological symptoms. Treatment options vary from person to person. Most patients developed at least one long-term symptom. Finally, we presented some possible research opportunities.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis; long COVID; network analysis; publication; research hotspots; research trends; social network analysis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The flowchart of data selection.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Monthly number of the publications.
Figure 3
Figure 3
International research collaboration map in original articles on long COVID.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Network visualization map for (a) author co-authorship map; (b) author co-citation map.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Top ten most frequent keywords.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The keywords co-occurrence network.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Garner P. Paul Garner: For 7 Weeks I Have Been through a Roller Coaster of Ill Health, Extreme Emotions, and Utter Exhaustion. [(accessed on 25 December 2021)];BMJ. 2020 Available online: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/05/05/paul-garner-people-who-have-a-more-....
    1. Mahase E. COVID-19: What do we know about “long covid”? BMJ. 2020;370:m2815. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m2815. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Post-COVID Conditions: Information for Healthcare Providers. [(accessed on 25 December 2021)]; Available online: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/post-covid-c....
    1. Service N.H. Long-Term Effects of Coronavirus (Long COVID) [(accessed on 25 December 2021)]. Available online: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/long-term-effects-of-...
    1. Gorna R., MacDermott N., Rayner C., O’Hara M., Evans S., Agyen L., Nutland W., Rogers N., Hastie C. Long COVID guidelines need to reflect lived experience. Lancet. 2021;397:455–457. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32705-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types