A Bibliometric Analysis and Scientific Knowledge Map Study of the Current Status and Development Trend of Pulmonary Rehabilitation

Abstract

Background: The field of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is gaining attention and research in clinical application year by year. This study aims to analyze the current status, hot topics, research frontiers and future trends of research in the field of pulmonary rehabilitation. Methods: Based on the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database, articles on pulmonary rehabilitation published between January 1st, 2010, and July 1st, 2023, were retrieved. Only articles published in English were included. Collaborative network analysis of the annual number of publications, countries/regions, institutions, journals, keywords, authors, and co-citation analysis of references were conducted using CiteSpace 6.2.R2 Advanced and VOSviewer1.6.18 software. Results: A total of 5408 articles related to pulmonary rehabilitation were included in the study, with 703 keywords. The United States is the leading country with the most annual publications, and Maastricht University is the most active institution. The International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is the most published, while the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is the most cited. Spruit Martijn A, Franssen, and Frits ME are the most published researchers in this field. The keywords co-occurrence analysis showed that the current research hotspots and frontiers are: ① fully revealing the clinical effect and potential of pulmonary rehabilitation, and deeply exploring its influence on related indicators and comorbidities of various chronic respiratory diseases, ② continuing to improve the pulmonary rehabilitation treatment strategy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), exercise training, and lung cancer status before and after surgery are still the main research directions, ③ due to the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, not only pulmonary rehabilitation in hospitals, but also home pulmonary rehabilitation has attracted wide attention. Conclusions: At present, pulmonary rehabilitation strategies, various chronic respiratory diseases, exercise methods and quality of life assessment are still hot research topics in this field. In the future, it is suggested to gradually improve the pulmonary rehabilitation strategy, improve the applicability and accessibility of the pulmonary rehabilitation program, and continue to pay attention to the long-term outcome of pulmonary rehabilitation.