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Review
. 2024 Jul;34(4):331-344.
doi: 10.4314/ejhs.v34i4.9.

Bibliometric Insights into Research on Frailty and Falls

Norbayah Zainal  1 , Azliyana Azizan  2
Affiliations
Review

Bibliometric Insights into Research on Frailty and Falls

Norbayah Zainal et al. Ethiop J Health Sci. 2024 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Global population aging has sparked research into frailty and falls given their impact on older adults. This study provides a bibliometric analysis of frailty and fall literature to identify publication trends, leading contributors, impactful works, and conceptual themes.

Methods: Frailty and fall publications were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science databases without date restrictions. Data was analyzed using ScientoPy, and VOSviewer to generate statistics, visualizations, and maps based on temporality, productive countries, institutions, citations, subject categories, and keyword occurrences.

Results: After pre-processing, 345 publications remained (84.6% Web of Science, 15.4% Scopus). The literature has grown steadily since 1990, led by the United States, China, and Japan. Prolific institutions were identified, including Pittsburgh University. Highly cited impactful studies were published across journals like the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Geriatrics/gerontology was the dominant subject category. Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed clusters focusing on geriatric physical health, cardiovascular health, cognition, interventions, and mortality.

Conclusions: This bibliometric analysis synthesizes a comprehensive overview of frailty and fall research, identifying rising publication and citation trends, leading global contributors, impactful studies, and thematic focuses. The findings can inform resource allocation, international collaboration, impactful evidence utilization, and future research planning to advance frailty science and clinical care for older populations. Ongoing investigation is warranted into frailty mechanisms, assessment, management, and multidomain interventions.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Fall; Frailty; Older adults.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The study process diagram of the search process adapted from the previous study (27)
Figure 2
Figure 2
The growth of publications on frailty and fall from 1990-2023
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) countries; (b) active institutions and (c)subject areas
Figure 4(a)
Figure 4(a)
Co-occurrence Analysis of network visualizations for the authors' keywords
Figure 4(b)
Figure 4(b)
Word cloud
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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