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. 2023 Apr 3:14:1147867.
doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1147867. eCollection 2023.

Global research trends on COVID-19 and stroke: A bibliometric analysis

Youjie Zeng  1 , Si Cao  1 , Heng Yang  2
Affiliations

Global research trends on COVID-19 and stroke: A bibliometric analysis

Youjie Zeng et al. Front Neurol. .

Abstract

Background: The pandemic of COVID-19 has had a profound influence on worldwide healthcare systems. Our study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis to explore the impact of COVID-19 on stroke and to highlight the major research trends in this field.

Methods: We searched the original articles and review articles regarding COVID-19 and stroke from the Web of Science collection (WOSCC) database between January 1, 2020 and December 30, 2022. Subsequently, we performed bibliometric analyses and visualization using VOSviewer, Citespace, and Scimago Graphica.

Results: A total of 608 original articles or review articles were included. JOURNAL OF STROKE and CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASES published the most studies on this subject (n = 76), while STROKE was the source of the most-cited references (n = 2,393). The United States is the most influential country in this field, with the highest number of publications (n = 223) and citations (n = 5,042). Shadi Yaghi from New York University is the most prolific author in the field, while Harvard Medical School is the most prolific institution. In addition, through keyword analysis and reference co-citation analysis, three major research topics were identified: (i) the impact of COVID-19 on stroke outcomes (including risk factors, clinical characteristics, mortality, stress, depression, comorbidities, etc.); (ii) the management and care of stroke patients during the COVID-19 pandemic (including thrombolysis, thrombectomy, telemedicine, anticoagulation, vaccination, etc.); and (iii) the potential relationship and pathological mechanism between COVID-19 and stroke (including renin-angiotensin system activation, SARS-CoV-2 virus-induced inflammation leading to endothelial impairment, coagulopathy, etc.).

Conclusion: Our bibliometric analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on COVID-19 and stroke and highlights key areas of focus in the field. Optimizing the treatment of COVID-19-infected stroke patients and elucidating the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of COVID-19 and stroke co-morbidity are key areas of future research that will be beneficial in improving the prognosis of stroke patients during the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Citespace; VOSviewer; Web of Science; bibliometric analysis; research hotspots; stroke; visual analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The data collection process of this study. (A) Searching strategy; (B) screening process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Country/region co-authorship networks. (A) Scimago Graphica-generated chord diagram of country/region cooperation network ranked by total link strength. The size of the nodes represents the number of publications of each country/region, and the color of the nodes represents the intensity of cooperation between countries/regions. (B) Dynamics and trends of the countries/regions with five publications or more. The size of the nodes represents the number of publications, and the color depth of the nodes represents the average appearance year of the publication. (C) Density map of the number of publications of countries/regions generated by VOSviewer. Both the color and font size indicates the number of publications. (D) Density map of the frequency of citation of countries/regions generated by VOSviewer. Both the color and font size indicates the citation frequency.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Author co-authorship networks. (A) Density map of the number of publications by author generated by VOSviewer. Both the color and font size indicates the number of publications of each author. (B) Scimago Graphica-generated chord diagram of author cooperation network. Both the color and size of the nodes indicate the intensity of cooperation between authors.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Institution co-authorship networks. (A) Co-occurrence network of institutions generated by VOSviewer. The size of the nodes represents the number of publications. The size of the nodes represents the number of publications of each institution, and the distance between nodes and the thickness of the link represents the intensity of cooperation between institutions. (B) Scimago Graphica-generated chord diagram of institution cooperation network. The size of the nodes represents the number of publications, and the color of the nodes represents the intensity of cooperation between institutions.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Sixty-six keywords with five or more occurrences were identified by VOSviewer. (A) Keyword co-occurrence network in COVID-19 and stroke studies. The size of the nodes represents the number of keyword occurrences, and the distance between the nodes and the thickness of the line between the nodes represent the frequency of concurrent occurrences of two keywords. (B) Density diagram of keywords in COVID-19 and stroke studies. Both the color and font size indicates the frequency of keyword occurrence.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Analysis of cited references (A) Reference co-citation network. The size of the nodes represents citation frequency, and the thickness of the line represents co-citation frequency. (B) Eight reference clusters were identified by Citespace.
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