Global Research Trends in Pediatrics from 1990 to 2020: A Bibliometric Analysis

This bibliometric analysis and visualization aimed at depicting bibliometric indicators of papers published globally in pediatrics during the recent three decades.

Using Web of Knowledge database, all papers published on pediatrics during 1990-2020 were retrieved. Bibliometric data on paper type, language, and publishing year, and publishing journal, country of origin, affiliated institutes, and subject areas were extracted. Using visualization techniques in VOSviewer software package, the collaboration / co-authorship networks, co-citation maps and keyword co-occurrence maps were depicted.

Top hot papers were mainly on childhood overweight and obesity, cerebral palsy, and body-mass index. David Isaacs, Prem Puri and Anne were the top most productive authors. Seetha Shankaran from Wayne State University, USA, ranked first in citation counts. Top publishing journals were Pediatric Research, Pediatric Blood and Cancer and Pediatrics, respectively. Highly-productive countries were the USA and UK, respectively. Among research areas, neurosciences neurology, oncology and surgery were heavily considered and had top h-indices, respectively. Five subject clusters focused on diseases, metabolism, neurology, psychiatry and immunology. These clusters cover all main research areas in the field, each with its own research methodologies and highlighted keywords.

Global research on pediatrics found its way and ever-increasingly develops as its bibliometric indicators clearly show.