Research evolution and frontiers of shared decision-making in pediatrics: a bibliometric analysis based on CiteSpace

Shared decision-making (SDM) is a patient-centered approach to medical decision-making. In pediatric care, SDM supports children's rights to participate, aligns with the principles of family-centered care, and improves treatment adherence, satisfaction, and health results. Although research on pediatric SDM has expanded rapidly in recent years, current reviews do not offer a comprehensive overview of the field's development and emerging trends. This study aimed to identify research hotspots and collaboration patterns of SDM in pediatrics through bibliometric analysis, and to predict future trends.

All publications from 1999 to April 2025 in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database were selected. CiteSpace analysis software was used to generate visualizations of global collaboration among countries, institutions, and authors. Research hotspots and frontiers of pediatric SDM were systematically summarized via keyword clustering and citation frequency analysis.

A total of 419 publications were retrieved, originating from 283 institutions in 32 countries and authored by 502 researchers. The research hotspots in this field focused on "decision making" and "decision aid", with future studies likely to continue exploring the application of family-centered SDM in chronic and complex pediatric diseases.

This study reveals through CiteSpace analysis that pediatric SDM research centers on three main threads: parent-child collaborative participation, application of decision aid tools (DAs), and interventions for chronic diseases. However, issues such as regional research imbalance and fragmented collaboration exist. Future efforts should focus on establishing multi-center research networks, standardizing terminology, and deepening intelligent tool development to promote evidence-based practice of SDM and enhance decision-making quality.