The Scientific Production of Providing Health Services to the Elderly: A Scientometric Study

Abstract

Introduction: Today, paying due attention to providing primary health services for the elderly is of high importance, and significant studies have been conducted in this regard in the world. The present study aimed to analyze the performance and drawing a scientific map of publications in the field of geriatric health services with a scientometric approach. Methods: In this scientometric study, all the scientific outputs in the field of geriatric health services in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE-Web of Science) in the period from 1980 to August 18, 2023 were included. For data analysis, biblioshiny and Excel software were used. Results: Among 33238 documents in the field of geriatric health services indexed in the SCIE, the most of them were original articles. The growth trend of these documents was increasing so that the lowest number is related to 1987 with two documents and the highest number is related to 2022 with 3315 documents. BMJ Open was the most productive journal and Lancet was the most cited journal in this field. Univ Toronto was the most prolific institution and Cohen AD was the most prolific author. The keywords health services research and epidemiology were the most frequent. Conclusion: By presenting a comprehensive picture of the current state of studies in the field of geriatric health services, this study can determine the direction of future research. In addition, the findings of the present study can guide the direction and effectiveness of the research in this field.