Palliative care and COVID-19: a bibliometric analysis

ObjectiveTo assess the impact of COVID-19 on the palliative care (PC) publication trend in the last 10 years and the collaboration between countries and main topics that were discussed in the papers. MethodsWe used Scopus to identify publications on PC between 2012 and 2021 and publications about PC and COVID-19 between 2020 and 2021. We used VOSviewer to assess the main topics using the keywords from the papers and to assess country collaboration. Results1937 publications resulted. An increase in publications about PC was observed during the pandemic, only partially explained by OVID-19-related publications. Cancer-related PC publications were the ones with the most marked increase. We identified six clusters in the distribution of the keywords: bioethics, cancer, nursing home/telemedicine, public health, caring and PC following the WHO definition. The countries with higher number of publications were the United States and England. ConclusionWe showed an increase in the number of PC publications in the last 2 years that was only partially explained by COVID-19-related publications. Most of the publications increase was due to cancer-related publications, since, during the time of the pandemic, publications on cancer and PC increased markedly, while those on heart failure, lung disease and dementia, remained constant.

Automated summary

This study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the publication trend of palliative care (PC) in the past 10 years, as well as the collaboration between countries and the main topics discussed. The results showed an increase in PC publications during the pandemic, with only a partial explanation from COVID-19-related publications. The most significant increase was observed in cancer-related PC publications. Six clusters of keywords were identified, including bioethics, cancer, nursing home/telemedicine, public health, caring, and PC following the WHO definition. The United States and England had the highest number of publications.