Global Long-Term Care Research: A Scientometric Review

Abstract

Since the early 1960s, long-term care (LTC) has attracted a broad range of attention from public health practitioners and researchers worldwide and produced a large volume of literature. We conducted a comprehensive scientometric review based on 14,019 LTC articles retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database from 1963 to 2018, to explore the status and trends of global LTC research. Using CiteSpace software, we conducted collaboration analysis, document co-citation analysis, and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The results showed a rapid increase in annual LTC publications, while the annual citation counts exhibited an inverted U-shaped relationship with years. The most productive LTC research institutions and authors are located primarily in North American and European countries. A simultaneous analysis of both references and keywords revealed that common LTC hot topics include dementia care, quality of care, prevalence and risk factors, mortality, and randomized controlled trial. In addition, LTC research trends have shifted from the demand side to the supply side, and from basic studies to practical applications. The new research frontiers are frailty in elderly people and dementia care. This study provides an in-depth understanding of the current state, popular themes, trends, and future directions of LTC research worldwide.

Factors Associated with Healthy Ageing, Healthy Status and Community Nursing Needs among the Rural Elderly in an Empty Nest Family: Results from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

“…Evidently, in line with the results of previous studies, the older adults in rural areas usually had a better daily activity level because most of them engaged in agriculture [5][6][7][8]. Cohabiting with children, not relying on them, and avoiding burdening them were considered to be obligations among the elderly people in rural China [26].…”

“…In addition, more than half of the elderly that have remained in the countryside still need to work in agricultural production and have chronic diseases. The empty nest families are the main family structure in rural China and there are many hidden dangers in the health care system for rural empty nesters [5][6][7][8].…”

“…Second, compared with other groups, the empty nest elderly in rural areas suffer disproportionately from a lack of health care and suffer a lower quality of life [8]. This is especially true for the empty nest elderly living alone where the lack of health services leads to the deterioration of their physical and mental health.…”

Factors Associated with the Psychological Health of Caregiving Older Parents and Support from Their Grown Children: Results from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

“…Fourth, we dealt with opinions rather than validated measures to assess psychological distress. The longer the elderly took care of their grandchildren, the greater the potential threat was to their health [3,5,[9][10][11]16,28,31]. All these aspects are worth further study in the future.…”

“…If older parents live with their grown children, they also need to consider their children's living habits, working conditions, and physical health. However, the living habits and self-care of the elderly are not consistent with the life needs of their grown children and grandchildren, and some of them are even completely opposed [31][32][33][34]. Especially in China, sometimes older parents need to sacrifice themselves in order not to cause trouble to their grown children, which increases the risks to their PH [35,36].…”