ABSTRACT
Objective:To analyze the trend and hot spots of research on multimorbidity.Methods:The Chinese and English literature in databases of CNKI, Wanfang data and Web of science from inception to July 2022 were retrieved using "multimorbidity" and "multiple chronic conditions" as the search terms. The scientific knowledge mapping software VOSviewer was used to analyze the co-occurrence network of scientific knowledge from the aspects of countries, Chinese and English keywords,burst terms and existing research results; and the status quo and hot trends of studies on multimorbidity at home and abroad were summarized and compared.Results:A total of 251 Chinese publications and 6 351 English publications were included. From the perspective of research trends, the overall trend of domestic and international publications showed a fluctuating upward trend in general, but the pace of development was different. The cooperation network represented by the United States, England, Canada, China, Japan, Australia and other countries was the largest regional cooperation network. Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia and other countries were the first regions to carry out studies on multimorbidity. Studies on multimorbidity in China mainly focused on three topics: diagnosis, treatment and care of multimorbidity, common disease management of multimorbidity, and research methods of multimorbidity. The English literature mainly focused on the clustering of three topics: multi-disease co-diagnosis and care research, multi-disease co-management model research, and multimorbidity related research. The analysis of burst terms indicated the research focus and trend change in different time periods. The results of the outburst word analysis showed that the recent research hotspots of multimorbidity were public health, machine learning, geriatric medicine and so on.Conclusions:The number of studies on the multimorbidity is rapidly increasing both domestically and internationally, and related research in China is still in the early stages of development. In terms of research hotspots, the research of multimorbidity has gradually shifted from phenomenon description to topics such as medical services and research methods of multimorbidity.