Research Hotspots and Trends on Post-Stroke Depression: a Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Post-stroke depression (PSD) is a common neuropsychiatric consequence of stroke that can negatively impact cognitive function, somatic function recovery, and patient survival. This paper utilized bibliometric and visualized analysis to explore current research hotspots and trends in this field to identify future clinical practice directions. Researchers utilized the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) to extract papers on PSD and employed tools such as CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Scimago Graphica to visually analyze the knowledge network of authors, institutions, countries/regions, journals, cited authors, cited references, cited journals, and keywords. A total of 850 papers were extracted from WoSCC, with Robinson, RG being identified as the most influential author in this area. The most prolific institution was Wenzhou Medical University, and China emerged as the leading country in producing research on PSD. Journal of Affective Disorders was found to be the most productive journal, with the primary keywords including poststroke depression, stroke, depression, and symptom. Co-citation analysis identified Robinson, RG as the leading researcher in PSD. The top-cited journal was Stroke, and the paper titled “Poststroke Depression: A Review” was ranked the most cited. Finally, “Neurosciences & Neurology” emerged as the most frequent study category. This study provided valuable information on the hotspot and frontier in PSD research, including potential partners and institutions, as well as reference points for future research topics and development directions.