COVID-19, who published what: An early bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: The emergence of a novel coronavirus, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), has spread fear across the globe. As nations around the world mobilize significant resources to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have sought to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the disease. Objective: This study aimed to map the COVID-19 research productivity based on articles indexed in PubMed and ScienceDirect. Methods: The articles related to COVID-19 dated from December 2019 to December 2020 were retrieved from both databases. The articles were classified into categories according to their type and theme. Results: Publication outputs were assessed. A total of 518 articles were included for analysis. They were published in 182 journals, The Lancet is the most productive (41 articles; 9.1%). China (53.7%), USA(10.4%), and the UK (8.7%) were the most productive countries in terms of COVID-19 research. The most common type of research was commentary (21.8%) and the most frequent theme was awareness (30.3%). The median impact factor for the publishing journals was 3.717, with a statistically significant difference in the impact factor based on the article type, theme, and language. Conclusion: The findings of this first bibliometric study on COVID-19 suggest that there is a need for international collaboration and further research on the management of the disease.