[Visual analysis of research on multidrug-resistant bacteria in intensive care unit in China]

To identify the distribution of research hotspots and frontiers of multidrug-resistant bacteria in intensive care units in China through the method of visualization, and to predict future research directions, analyze the research development process, so as to provide reference basis for further research in this field.

Studies related to multidrug-resistant bacteria in intensive care units published in China from 2000 to 2019 by CNKI were reviewed. According to the keywords by CiteSpace 5.6.R2, the co-occurring network was generated to analyze the distribution of research hotspots in this field. Meanwhile, the mutation map of keywords was used to forecast the future research directions to a certain extent.

A total of 1 324 articles were finally included in the quantitative analysis. From 2000 to 2019, the number of publications in the field of multi-drug resistant bacteria in intensive care units showed a gradual increase, of which the number of publications increased rapidly from 2008 to 2014 (the number of publications increased from 34 to 124 articles). In the initial stage of research, conceptual keywords appeared, such as intensive care unit, infection, pathogenic bacteria and drug resistance among others. A dense keywords group appeared from 2008 to 2014, which covered several aspects, such as nosocomial infection, Acinetobacter baumannii, pathogenic bacteria, drug resistance, pulsed field gel electrophoresis and nursing etc., suggesting that research in this field has entered a period of vigorous development. High-frequency keywords, such as risk factors, pathogens, antibiotics, nosocomial infections, drug resistance genes and homology appeared from 2015 to 2019, thus representing the hotspots in recent years.

The overall research on multidrug-resistant bacteria in intensive care units in China has gradually improved. The current studies focus on homology analysis and multidrug-resistant bacteria infections, among other topics. Further explorations at the genetic level will be conducted to fill the research vacancy in this field and to provide molecular biological basis for reducing the occurrence of multidrug-resistant bacteria in the future.