A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications on COVID-19 and Older Adults

Bibliometric analysis is important for guiding future research priorities. We evaluated the most relevant scientific research on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and older adults, analyzed current hot topics, and identified the 50 most cited publications.

Articles published between December 2019 and March 17, 2021 were identified using the search terms "COVID-19" or "Novel Coronavirus" or "SARS-CoV-2" or "2019-nCoV" and "geriatrics" or "older adults" or "elderly" appearing in the title, abstract, keywords, or keywords plus. Original research articles, reviews, editorial materials, and letters were included. Information on articles year, journal, title, author, country, affiliation, keywords, document type, and counts of citations was collected. VOSviewer was used to analyze keywords.

A total of 784 publications were included. The most common keywords were "COVID-19" and "older adults," which were strongly related to "social isolation," "dementia," "mortality," and "loneliness." The most active (40.8%) and most cited (1,578) country was the United States. The Journal of the American Geriatric Society had the largest number of publications (22.7%) and citations (947). The most researched (84.0%) and most cited areas were geriatrics-gerontology (2,882). The median number of citations for the most cited 50 articles was 46.8.

The results of the bibliometric analysis provided information about the quality and research areas of published studies on COVID-19 and older adults. Social and psychological support, nutrition, vaccines, and telemedicine may be hot research topics for the future.