Mapping the global research landscape on malnutrition for patients with chronic kidney disease: a visualization analysis

Abstract

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is seen as a diverse disease and a primary contributor to global mortality. Malnutrition arises within chronic illness, which involves protein energy depletion and inadequate levels of essential nutrients. These factors increase the likelihood of death and the overall impact of the disease on affected individuals. Consequently, this study aims to utilize bibliometric and visual analysis to assess the current state of research, the latest advances and emerging patterns in the fields of CKD and malnutrition.

Methods: Extensive research was conducted using the Scopus database, which is the most authoritative database of research publications and citations, to focus on CKD research between 2003 and 2022, as indicated by title and author keywords. Then, within this vast collection of academic publications, a notable subset of articles was exclusively dedicated to investigating the relationship between CKD and malnutrition. Finally, we performed bibliometric analysis and visualization using VOSviewer 1.6.19 and Microsoft Excel 2013.

Results: Large global research between 2003 and 2022 resulted in 50,588 documents focused on CKD, as indicated by title and author keywords. In this extensive collection of scientific publications, a staggering portion of 823 articles is devoted exclusively to investigating the link between CKD and malnutrition. Further analysis reveals that this body of work consists of 565 articles (68.65%), 221 reviews (26.85%), and 37 miscellaneous entries (4.50%), which encompass letters and editorials. The USA was found to be the most productive country (n = 173; 21.02%), followed by Italy (n = 83; 10.09%), Sweden (n = 56; 6.80%), Brazil (n = 54; 6.56%) and China (n = 51; 6.20%). The most common terms on the map include those related to the topic of (a) malnutrition in hemodialysis patients and predicting factors; terms associated with the (b) impact of malnutrition on cardiovascular risk and complications in CKD patients; and terms related to the (c) dietary protein intake and malnutrition in CKD.

Conclusions: This study is the first of its kind to analyze CKD and malnutrition research using data from Scopus for visualization and network mapping. Recent trends indicate an increasing focus on protein-energy wasting/malnutrition in hemodialysis patients and predicting factors, dietary protein intake, and malnutrition in CKD. These topics have gained significant attention and reflect the latest scientific advances. Intervention studies are crucial to examining diet therapy's impact on patients with stages 1 to 5 CKD. We hope this study will offer researchers, dietitians and nephrologists valuable information.

Keywords: Bibliometric; Chronic kidney disease; Malnutrition; Scopus; VOSviewer.

Fig. 1

The annual number of publications related to malnutrition and chronic kidney disease from 2003 to 2022

Fig. 2

A network of countries and regions that collaborate to study malnutrition and chronic kidney disease. The cooperation map revealed that 22 countries and regions had produced at least ten publications on the subject

Fig. 3

The clustering and co-occurrence of terms in the title and abstract fields of publications related to malnutrition and chronic kidney disease. A map of the clusters revealed 169 terms that occurred at least 30 times, which were categorized into three separate clusters. The size of the node and the word on the map represented the frequency of co-occurrence, and the link between nodes indicated their relationship. Nodes that shared the same color were part of the same cluster

Fig. 4

A visualization map has been created that overlays terms from the titles and abstracts of publications related to malnutrition and chronic kidney disease. Each keyword was assigned a different color based on its average appearance time in the overlay visualization map. Blue was used to represent keywords that appeared earlier in the time course compared to those in yellow