Trends in Dental Education: A Bibliometric Analysis From 2014 to 2023

Bibliometrics helps to reveal the internal relations and development trends of the subject field. This study employs bibliometric analysis to provide a comprehensive scope of dental education over the past decade.

The Web of Science core collection was searched for articles about dental education between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2023. The CiteSpace and SCImago Graphica software were used to extract and visualize the data, which included information about the number of publications, countries, institutions, authors, keywords, and other details.

2472 research articles and reviews were included, and the yearly publishing volume demonstrated a general increasing trend over the previous ten years. The United States was a significant nation in the national cooperation network and had the most publications overall (1257 articles). Around 463 writers were included, and M. R. Inglehart was the scholar with the most publications. The most frequent keyword is "dental education". The keywords burst analysis revealed that mental health, online learning, and virtual reality might be the key areas of focus in future research.

This study identified key trends in dental education, emphasizing the need for curriculum optimization and digital innovation. Educators should integrate digital technologies and psychological concepts to improve teaching methods and adapt to evolving educational needs in the future.