Active research fields of gynecology and obstetrics: a document co-citation clustering analysis of literatures

Abstract

Objective To explore active research fields of gynecology and obstetrics from a large amount of literatures. Methods Document co-citation clustering analysis method was used in this article. ISI web of knowledge-SCI-EXPANDED was used to retrieve all the 5 800 documents published in 2016-2017 from journals with higher impact factor. Then the occurrence of cited literatures was compared and ranked. A reference co-occurrence matrix of selected 38 cited literatures can be created using Bibliographic Item Co-Occurrence Matrix Builder (BICOMB). This co-occurrence matrix was then transformed into gCluto (gCluTo -Graphical Clustering Toolkit) for further analysis within co-citation clusters. Results A co-occurrence matrix was formed based on these findings, and ultimately co-citation clustering indicators, i.e., information trees, data matrix were formed and provided direct visualization as hot spots on five active gynecology and obstetrics categories. Conclusion The active categories of gynecology and obstetrics research were identified by using the co-citation cluster analysis. Key words: Gynecology and obstetrics; Hot spots; High-frequency cited papers; Clustering analysis; Bibliometric analysis