[Visualized analysis of literature on sepsis caused by Gram positive bacteria in SinoMed]

To understand the current situation of research in the field of sepsis caused by Gram positive bacteria (G⁺ bacteria) in China, to clarify the research content and analyze its general research direction, so as to find the hot topics of research in recent years.

The literatures in SinoMed related to sepsis caused by G⁺ bacteria and published in Chinese from building database to October 2019 were screened. The distribution and trend of the published year, journals, research institutions and researchers of relevant literature were analyzed, and Ucinet 6.0 software was used to draw the social network graph of the researchers and to analyze their internal relations. The subject words of related literatures were extracted. The relationship among the subject words in related literatures was arranged according to the centrality by NetDraw in Ucinet 6.0 software, the bibliographic information co-occurrence analysis system software (BICOMS2 software) was used to classify the subject words and the visualization matrix was generated. The graph clustering tool software (gCLUTO software) was used to cluster the subject words, and the visualization surface graph was generated to analyze the current research hot spot, research trend and research direction of G⁺ bacteria-induced sepsis.

A total of 1 976 literatures about sepsis caused by G⁺ bacteria were retrieved, and 26 literatures in conference summaries, news reports, research information, missing content, or inconsistent with the theme were excluded. Finally, a total of 1 950 literatures were enrolled in final analysis. The number of published literatures analysis showed that from 1979 to 1992, there were few studies about sepsis caused by G⁺ bacteria, which increased geometrically from 2008, and the number of literatures published from 2008 to 2018 was 1 144, accounting for 58.67% (1 144/1 950). From 1979 to 2019, 23 high-yield institutions published more than 5 literatures, of which 6 were institutions with 10 or more literatures, and only one institution with more than 20 literatures. There were only 5 journals with more than 100 articles, 5 381 authors involved in the literatures, but few authors with more than 10 literatures published, and no inter-provincial or inter-municipal cooperation was found. A social network analysis of 103 high-frequency subject words that appeared more than 5 times showed that the study of sepsis caused by G⁺ bacteria mainly focused on "sepsis", including the incidence of sepsis caused by drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus was on the rise, especially in newborns and children with weakened immune systems, the selection of therapeutic drugs gradually developed to glycopeptides with strong anti-drug resistance and synthetic oxazolidinones. The research and development of drugs for the treatment of sepsis caused by G⁺ bacteria might become a new research direction or field in the future. Cluster analysis of 103 high-frequency subject words showed that the research hot spots of G⁺ bacteria-induced sepsis mainly focused on five topics, namely early diagnosis of sepsis; bacterial infection pathway of sepsis, nosocomial infection and bacterial drug resistance; the basis of epidemiological prevention and treatment of sepsis; venous catheter infection-related sepsis; the treatment, nursing and prognosis of patients with sepsis.

The studies of sepsis caused by G⁺ bacteria are winning more and more attention, but the resources sharing and academic exchanges among hospitals need to be further improved.