Scientific Mapping of Chronic Heart Failure based on Co-citation Analysis

Since chronic heart failure is considered as one of the main causes of death around the world, it is necessary to map the intellectual structure of studies in this area. This study attempted to map the knowledge structure of chronic heart failure using document co-citation analysis. Bibliometric methodology and social network analysis were used as the research methods. The study population comprised 11967 records in the field of chronic heart failure published during the period of 2000-2015, which were retrieved from Web of Science database. The correlation matrix and hierarchical clustering were used for document co-citation analysis. “Anker SD”, with 194 papers, was the most productive researcher in chronic heart failure. Again, “Anker SD”, with 12820 citations, was the most cited scientist in this field in Web of Science. “Bristow M” and “Cleland J” were the most frequent co-citation pairs within chronic heart failure, with 634 co-occurrences. The intellectual structure of knowledge in chronic heart failure is an evolving structure, and the clusters identified in this study can be included in the curriculum of the field. Furthermore, these results can help policymakers to identify both unaddressed and matured topics.