Trend Linking of Multiple System Atrophy: A Scientometric Study

This study aims to add to previous analyses and describe the trends in MSA research from three decades, 1988 to 2018, through assessing the medical literature. Additionally, a collaboration network was analyzed to determine the most common process in development of MSA research.

This research was a descriptive survey with a scientometric approach. The data for the present study were collected from the Web of Science (WoS) and search strategy based on Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) term. In this research, the data analysis was performed based on collaboration network and theme analysis.

In this study, 6530 articles were retrieved from 1988 to 2018 divided in three different periods. These articles were drafted by 39,184 authors, 3,865 organizations, 80 countries, and 832 journals. Further, 287 articles with more than 100 citations were found. The global citation score (GCS) was 250,834 times and the average citations per article was 3,841 times. The MSA research field demonstrated a diagram for a chronological period to assess the most relevant themes. Each diagram depended on the sum of documents linked to each research topic. Scientometric analysis of the field of MSA can be regarded as a roadmap for future research and policymaking in this important area.