Abstract
Objective: This study aimed to analyze the progression and trends of multimorbidity in the elderly in China and internationally from a bibliometric perspective, and compare their differences on hotspots and research fronts. Methods: Publications between January 2001 and August 2021 were retrieved from WOS and CNKI databases. Endnote 20 and VOSviewer 1.6.8 were used to summarize bibliometric features, including publication years, journals, and keywords, and the co-occurrence map of countries, institutions, and keywords was drawn. Results: 3857 research papers in English and 664 research papers in Chinese were included in this study. The development trends of multimorbidity in the elderly are fully synchronized in China and other countries. They were divided into germination period, development period, and prosperity period. Research literature in English was found to be mainly focused on public health, and the IF of the literature is high; In China, however, most research papers are in general medicine and geriatrics with fewer core journals. Co-occurrence analysis based on countries and institutions showed that the most productive areas were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, while the Chinese researchers have made little contribution. The clustering analysis of high-frequency keywords in China and around the globe shows that the hotspots have shifted from individual multimorbidity to group multimorbidity management. Sorting out the top 10 highly cited articles and highly cited authors, Barnett, K’s article published in Lancet in 2012 is regarded as a milestone in the field. Conclusion: Multimorbidity in the elderly leads to more attention in the world. Although China lags behind global research the research fronts from disease-centered to patient-centered, and individual management to population management is consistent.
Highlights
With the changes in the disease spectrum and aging of the population, chronic diseases have become the most important disease burden and the main cause of death for the global population
China lags behind global research the research fronts from disease-centered to patient-centered, and individual management to population management is consistent
In the past two decades, the global prevalence of multimorbidity in the elderly has shown an upward trend despite the large differences between regions, among which the prevalence has reached from 57% to 81% in China [3,4,5]
Summary
With the changes in the disease spectrum and aging of the population, chronic diseases have become the most important disease burden and the main cause of death for the global population. More and more elderly people suffer from multiple chronic diseases at the same time because of the high prevalence and long course of chronic diseases. Geriatrics Association, multimorbidity in the elderly refers to the existence of two or more chronic medical conditions, including common chronic diseases, geriatric syndromes, and geriatric problems [2]. Previous research compared its prevalence patterns in elderly people from different regions [6,7,8,9,10] and different age groups [11,12]. With the increase in elderly people having multimorbidity, the substantive research literature has been
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