Current research status and prospect of organ donation discipline construction in China: a bibliometric analysis / 器官移植

ABSTRACT

Objective To refine and summarize the research status and development trend of organ donation discipline in China. Methods Relevant Chinese and English literatures related to organ donation were searched from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science core collection database from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2022. Visual analysis was performed by the CiteSpace software from the number of published articles, keywords, journal source distribution, cooperation network of core authors, main research institutions, and citation of key literatures, etc. Results A total of 792 articles were published from 2018 to 2022, with an average annual number of 158 articles, which showed a rapidly upward trend. Among them, 182 articles were published in the form of postgraduate dissertation, accounting for 23%. Common keywords included organ transplantation, brain death, cardiac death, willingness/cognition/attitude, legal system, influencing factor/risk factor, infection/complication, Organ Procurement Organization, prognosis/quality, education for college students/medical students, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, children, ischemia-reperfusion injury, donor-derived infection, ethics, expended criteria donor, nursing and coordinator, etc. Keyword clustering hotspots focused on the theme of “organ donation” and branched into multiple disciplines. The publications of research results were characterized with pluralism and diversity, and the research contents were centered on medicine and spanned a wide range of disciplines. A large proportion of researches were published by the teams from large-scale organ transplantation institutions, and relatively close cooperative relationship was formed within the institutions. However, the intensity of cooperation among different institutions was relatively low, and the cooperative relationship among authors was insufficient, which failed to form an intimate academic network. The top five countries worldwide regarding the number of published articles were the U.S. (n=940), U.K. (n=377), Spain (n=263), Canada (n=241) and China (n=181), indicating that the achievements of Chinese researchers have been gradually recognized in the international academic community. Conclusions From the quantity and content of published articles in recent years, “organ donation” has laid certain research foundation in China. It is one of the topics concerned and widely studied by multiple academic communities in China. Relevant research issues have multidisciplinary, plural and diverse characteristics.