key: cord-0787689-3qkl3uql
authors: Kappi, Mallikarjun; Chaman, Sab M.; Biradar, Balabhim Sankrappa; Bagalkoti, Vitthal T.
title: Coronavirus: a scientometric study of worldwide research publications
date: 2022-01-14
journal: Data Science for COVID-19
DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-323-90769-9.00019-0
sha: 040cd51e9ea24eb22b9d248b9b1f5457551ddc67
doc_id: 787689
cord_uid: 3qkl3uql

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are a large family of viruses and are endemic in humans and animals, causing respiratory and intestinal infections. CoV has become a challenge in China region due to its recent outbreak at the start of the year 2020. The current outbreak of CoV disease has resulted in many fatalities and has forced the people of Wuhan Province in China to remain confined in their homes. Two other two forms of CoVs were epidemic in 2003 when the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) spread in Hong Kong and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) spread in the Middle East region. This scientometric study is an attempt to trace the trends of research associated with “Coronavirus” for a period of 32 years using the Web of Science citation database. The database was searched on February 26, 2020, for CoV publications published from 1989 to 2020. Identified and analyzed parameters include year of publication, publication type, patterns of international collaboration, research institutions, journals, impact factor, h-index, language, and the number of times cited. Most of the research publications were from the United States (35,871), and the University of Hong Kong was the most productive institute (517, 4.10% publications). The Journal of Virology has published the most number of articles on CoV.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus (CoV) in Wuhan Province in China, doctors, health organizations, and administrations across the globe have been stretched in response to the increasing incidence and distribution of the outbreak. CoVs are a large family of viruses that cause respiratory illness. CoV is related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Historically, SARS-CoV entered the spotlight when it caused an epidemic in Hong Kong. Thereafter, China, Vietnam, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and other parts of the globe witnessed outbreaks of the virus. The main cause of SARS was identified as CoV [1e4] . The other form of CoV identified in 2013 as MERS-CoV is genetically related to humans [5, 6] . However, CoV has been the subject of virology research since 1931 and was identified as a pathogen affecting both humans and animals [7] . The major symptoms of CoV and its variants are characterized by respiratory illness (pneumonia, bronchitis, etc.) and intestinal infections (gastroenteritis, diarrhea, etc.) in both humans and animals [7, 8] . The origin of the current strain of CoV has been linked to bats in China [9] and camels (Camelus dromedarius) in the Middle East region [10] .

In contemporary ages, bibliometric study has become popular, which applies literature metrology characteristics to measure the aid of an area of research, predicts exhaustive developments of research or hotspots in a certain field, and makes an important contribution to the prevention and treatment of diseases.

Descriptive analyses were conducted to evaluate the characteristics and types of documents, and the top 25 authors and journals involved in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related research and publications were identified. Also, coauthorship among all the authors in the bibliography was measured, and an evaluation of how many of them were connected within documents authored or coauthored by individuals was performed. Additionally, the affiliating institutions and countries of the respective authors were mapped using a network analysis approach. This set of analyses allowed comparing the nature and magnitude of collaboration at the individual, institutional, and global degrees and analyzing how such collaboration impacted the information base on COVID-19. Additionally, keywords and texts in titles and abstracts within scientific documents had been identified and evaluated for the use of textual content-mining methods, and network analyses were conducted to assess the connectedness among those documents and related keywords. Furthermore, the co-occurrence of multiple authors, keywords, institutions, and countries, different thresholds were used to create visualizations of frequency distributions for each variable, whereas all entries within each variable were assessed for the same threshold to ensure equitable comparisons within respective fields of analyses. In addition, a multidimensional scaling approach was used to conduct a factorial analysis and construct a conceptual structure map depicting hierarchic relationships among knowledge areas within the research landscape of COVID-19.

Evaluation of research developments is executed through bibliometric techniques. Bibliometric methods aid in the measurement of the publication form on a given topic, journals, authors, institutions, and countries using statistical methods [11e13]. Research on SARS had been reported [14] and there has been international linkages of CoV research output [15e17], however there are no specific bibliometric analyses on CoV. Bibliometric studies related to SARS were stated through 2003, with no descriptive bibliometric research to be associated with CoV thereafter. The aim of this study is to present a bibliometric perspective of CoV research for the period 1989e2020 (32 years).

The study was analyzed the research output of CoV for the period 1989e2020 on several parameters. The Web of Science (WoS) citation database has been used to retrieve the publications data for 32 years. These WoS database is maintained by Clarivate Analytics, which is the world's leading scientific citation search and analytical information platform. The study period 1989e2020 is selected, as the database is available. Search string used for the data retrieval is SU ¼ (Corona virus) AND Timespan ¼ 1989e2020. Database ¼ SCSCI, A&HCI, this search criterion yielded 12,726 records. In addition MS Excel was used for the purpose of data analysis, and collaboration networks have been generated by using VOSviewer software [5, 9, 18, 19] .

These are the major bibliometric parameters established in other research publications [16, 20] . The number of citations accumulated by the publication through February 22, 2020, was used to determine the impact factor (IF). The number citations received in the year of publication is denoted as TP, the number of citations in the year 2020 is denoted as C2020, and total citations (TC) are denoted as TC 2020. The qualitative parameter of an article's Hirsch index (h-index) [21] was obtained from the database for the most productive authors and institutes. Citation analysis is 2 S. RAM, a tool for journal evaluation, and the evaluation is carried out based on its IF [10,18,22e31] . The IF is a yearly mean number of citations received by articles published in a journal during the past 2 years [32] . IFs of the journals were obtained from the 2018 Journal Citation Report (JCR) and denoted as IF2018; the research direction in a field can be assessed using bibliometric analysis. Authors provide keywords that are useful in determining the hot research areas [33e35]. Research trends using author keywords were analyzed using VOSviewer [10,18,24e27] . The collaboration network is defined from the authors' affiliations [10,18,24e30,36] .

Data on the bibliographic records were collected from the online version of WoS related to CoV research publications from worldwide for the period of 1989e2020. A total of 12,726 publications were collected; Table 22 Table 22 .2 illustrates the forms of publication of CoV research; these include articles, reviews, proceedings paper, editorial materials, meeting abstracts, letters, notes, news item, book chapters, etc. The study observed that there were a total of 12,726 publications in CoV research output from around the world. The majority of publications are published in journal articles, i.e., 10,358 (82.128%), followed by reviews, 1122 (8.896%), proceedings papers, 439 (3.481%); editorial materials, 357 (2.831%); meeting abstracts, 281 (2.228%); letters, 234 (1.855%); notes, 115 (0.912%); news items, 83 (0.658%); book chapters, 63 (0.5%); corrections, 54 (0.428%); and early access, 41 (0.325%); and less than five articles are published in reprint, three papers as correction addition. It was also observed from the data that more than 99% of articles were published in the English language. Table 22 .3 indicates that 97.407% (12,726 publications) of the worldwide publications in CoV were in the English language, followed by French, 87 (0.69%) papers; German, 81 (0.642%); Spanish, 36 (0.285%); Chinese, 31 (0.246%); Hungarian, 23 (0.182%); Polish, 16 (0.127%); Portuguese, 13 (0.103%); Russian, 10 (0.079%); Dutch and Turkish, 9 (0.071%); Italian, 4 (0.032%); Czech and Korean, 2 (0.016%); and less than 1% of papers were published in Greek, Japanese, and other languages.

The CoV articles published during 1989e2020 were classified under 25 major subdisciplines (as defined by WoS citation database). Table 22 .4 reveals the top 25 research areas of the world in the field of CoV. Virology accounted for the largest publications, i.e., 3993 (31.483%), followed by veterinary sciences, 1908 (15.044%) publications; infectious diseases, 1490 (11.784%) publications; immunology, 1477 (11.646%); microbiology, 1405 (11.078%); biochemistry and molecular biology, 1113 (8.776%); and biotechnology and applied microbiology, 718 (5.661%); multidisciplinary sciences, 581 (4.581%); medicine research experiment, 569 (4.486%) etc. 

The international distribution of articles is presented in Table 22 .8, which gives the country-wise distribution of contributions. Out of the total 12,726 research articles, the United States contributed the highest number of research articles with 4524 publications with 35.871% share, followed by China, 2667 publications (21.147%); Germany, 882 publications (6.993%); England, 782 publications (6.2%); Netherlands, 728 publications (5.772%); Canada, 707 publications (5.606%); Japan, 586 publications (4.646%); and many countries contributed below 0.5% share, with India contributing 125 publications (0.991) during 1989e2020 (Fig. 22.5) . Table 22 

A total of 12,726 papers on CoV research published between 1989 and 2020 were retrieved from WoS database. The number of publications has gradually increased, and in 2004, a total of 782 papers were published, which was followed by a significant increase to 734 in 2019. It is indicated that this field has been attracting more attention since the current CoV outbreak. The increasing trend in the number of papers per year is illustrated in Scientific studies perform a vital role in the prevention and control of an epidemic [1, 14] , which merits to be absolutely mobilized, deployed, and reinforced comprehensively to update our expertise knowledge and the connection among disease, humanity, and history [10,11,17,18,22e31,37] . In addition, scientific and technologic methodology and tactics need to be the pinnacle precedence in our steady fight against viruses and in getting us completely organized for prevention and control of an epidemic [2, 38] . Many scientific research had been performed for CoV prevention and management, which lay the solid foundation for virus identification, vaccine improvement, formulation of prevention and control measures, and R&D of specific drugs [1, 14, 39] . In this regard, this chapter summarizes the scientific research publications after the epidemic outbreak and aims to provide reference and thinking for the path of medical studies on CoV in the future. 

Virology, epidemiology, medical features, laboratory examination, radiography, prognosis, and treatment are the research hotspots of CoV outbreak; these studies' findings play a vital role in the prevention and control of the epidemic spreading all around the world. With research on CoV nevertheless booming, new vaccine and effective medicinal drugs for CoV infection may be anticipated in the near future.

The results showed there is a direct relationship between the CoV outbreaks and the number of scientific publications in this area in the world. The quality of the researchers' productions in this area can be deliberated by scientific methods, and researchers' selfcitation has affected their h-index. For healthcare researchers, policymakers, and planners, it is necessary to be aware of the results of scientific studies of strategic and vital research areas, such as CoV, to identify more appropriate therapeutic goals, make better decisions, and provide more effective solutions in the shortest time. 

Coronavirus as a possible cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome

Identification of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Canada

A cluster of cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong

Epidemiology and cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Guangdong, People's Republic of China

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV): announcement of the coronavirus study group

Isolation of a novel coronavirus from a man with pneumonia in Saudi Arabia

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Visualisation of asthma research output in India during 2010e2019

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus: epidemiology and disease control measures

Origin and evolution of pathogenic coronaviruses

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Citation Data as Science Indicators

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Bibliometric analysis of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related research in the beginning stage

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Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping

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The highly cited SARS research literature

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Bibliometric analysis of Indian Optics Research: identifying knowledge domain

Global stem cell research trend: bibliometric analysis as a tool for mapping of trends from

Preparation and characterization of protein-loaded polyanhydride microspheres