Global and Chinese Research Trends in Preoperative Prehabilitation: A CiteSpace Bibliometric Analysis

Preoperative prehabilitation seeks to improve patients' functional reserve before surgery and support postoperative recovery. This bibliometric study mapped publication growth, collaboration patterns, research hotspots, and emerging themes in Web of Science Core Collection-indexed English-language literature and China National Knowledge Infrastructure-indexed Chinese-language literature. Both databases were searched from January 1, 2016, through December 21, 2024, using database-specific terms for prehabilitation and related preoperative rehabilitation concepts. After eligibility screening and duplicate removal, 1,757 English-language and 490 Chinese-language records were analyzed with CiteSpace. Publication output increased over the study period; however, 2024 estimates may be affected by database indexing lag and should be interpreted with caution. English-language research emphasized surgery, outcomes, quality of life, exercise, complications, randomized trials, prostate cancer, pulmonary rehabilitation, and noncardiac surgery, whereas Chinese-language research emphasized nursing, lung cancer, reviews, perioperative care, and nutrition. The English-language author network was larger than the Chinese-language network, while institutional collaboration was denser in the English-language corpus. Prehabilitation has developed into a multidisciplinary field, but future work should strengthen multicenter collaboration, standardize intervention components and outcomes, and evaluate individualized multimodal strategies.