Bibliometric Analysis of the 103 Most-Cited Articles about COVID-19 in the Intensive Care Field

Abstract

Introduction.:The COVID-19 pandemic affects the whole world and many studies were published about intensive care. Our aim is to assess the characteristics of 103 publications with most citations among literature related to COVID-19 in the intensive care field.
 Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study used suitable key words like “COVID-19”, “COVID-2019”, “SARS-CoV-2” and “pandemic” in the “Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science” database to determine the top 103 publications with most citations. Comparison of groups used the Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U tests.
 Results: Analysis of intensive care literature about COVID-19 up to October 2020 determined 1413 publications. The most-cited study had 1004 citations, while 7 was the minimum citations within the top 103 studies. The mean total citation number for these publications was 49.58±117.63. The most-cited study was by Xu, Zhe et al. in the April 2020 issue of Lancet Respiratory Medicine entitled “Pathological findings of COVID-19 associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome”. When the areas of focus of the top studies are investigated, they were COVID-19 treatment (26.21%), experience and recommendations about COVID-19 (23.30%) and COVID-19 physiopathology (13.59%). 
 Conclusions: Our study is the first to analyze the top 103 studies with most citations related to COVID-19 in the intensive care literature. With the spread of the pandemic, academic articles continue to be published with great speed. Bibliographic studies provide critical information to assess the citation profile and determine the areas of focus. Future intensive care publications about COVID-19 will focus on diagnosis, treatment and physiopathology.