Theme trends and knowledge‐relationship in frail older adults and quality of life research: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundFrailty is a multidimensional construct that represents an age‐related reduction in physiologic reserve and resistance to stressors. Health‐related quality of life was found to be significantly low for the frail older adults.MethodVOS viewer is a program that graphically represents them through bibliometric analysis. Using the Web of Science data and VOS viewer program, we analyzed frail older adults and quality of life. We identified and incorporated 194 publications. We searched all years the data from 2012 to 2021 using the keywords: TITLE ((frail OR frailty OR feeble) AND (qol OR “quality of life” OR “life satisfaction” OR satisfaction OR “well‐being” OR “subjective life”)) AND DOCTYPE (ar) AND PUBYEAR 2012‐2021 LANGUAGE (English).ResultLooking at the trend of changes in the number of published documents from 2012 to 2021, it showed an increase of 337.5% (Figure 1). The most research was included 74 and 27 cases in Geriatrics Gerontology (Figure 2). A total of 188 papers on the QoL for the frail older adults were published in 110 journals (Table 1). Australia and the United States published the largest number of papers with 29 (15.10%) (Figure 3). Studies on the quality of life of the frail older adults were conducted by researchers belonging to 434 institutions. Maastricht University, University Groningen, and Erasmus University published the largest number of papers with 6 each (Figure 4). A total of 909 keywords were searched in 188 papers, and the top 100 keywords were selected based on the frequency. There were 6 clusters and Based on the TLS and the top 5 keywords were health (49 times), mobility (41 times), disability (37 times), prevalence (37 times), and adults (33 times) (Figure 5).ConclusionResearch on the QoL and the frail older adults is increasing. For preventive treatment for the frail older adults, which determines the quality of life, it is necessary to focus on research topics on this.