Nicola et al. noticed an increase in the percentage of COVID-19-related articles in journals,1 which inspired us to take a deeper look at the bibliometrics. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019, research publications about COVID-19 have increased dramatically, up to 444,693 articles collected in the WHO database until end 2021.2 Correspondingly, quantity-based bibliometric articles related to COVID-19 research also proliferated. According to our observation, many of these bibliometric studies are redundant and fragmented, just with altering topics and timespans.
From the WHO COVID-19 database, we have identified 487 English-language bibliometric articles within 2 years, including 338 articles in biomedical field. While 93 articles dealt with general trend of COVID-19 research, more articles focused on a specific research area, topic/disease, patient group, country/geographic region, authorship, citation, or publication-related issue. A substantial portion (n = 49) of articles involved a combination of these parameters, e.g. “dermatology literature from low- and middle-income countries”3 and “gender differences in first and corresponding authorship in public health research”.4 In 34 articles, COVID-19 research output was compared with those of other diseases. A more preferred pattern was to conduct a comparative analysis before and during the pandemic (n = 186). The timespans of quantifying COVID-19 research ranged from 1 to 21 months (Q1 = 5 months, Q2 = 9 months, Q3 = 13 months).
Too many bibliometric studies might take up resources for non-COVID-19 research as well as spoil the pleasure of reading. In our opinion, most of them might be spared if the abstract of each original article could contain sufficient information as formulated in STROBE, PRISMA, CONSORT, and other reporting guidelines. Search engines would more easily construct a robust database for researchers to perform various bibliometric analyses directly online. Research time and publishing spaces should be reserved for more productive matters.
Declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they do not have a conflict of interest.
Footnotes
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References
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