Visualized study of fetal congenital heart disease in China based on co-word analysis

Abstract

Objective To study the development trend of research on fetal congenital heart disease(CHD) in China through a visualized network based on research key words of fetal CHD with the co-word and social network analysis. Methods The China Biology Medicine (CBM) and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases had been searched using the mesh keywords offetusandcongenital heart diseasefrom January 1976 to December 2015, a total of 1 458 articles in accordance with the accepting criteria of this study were included as the research objects. Enrolled articles were divided into three stage groups as 1976-1995 year group, 1996-2005 year group and 2006-2015 year group.Collected the core key words and their words frequencies, then taken out the proper core key words from above stages with Endnote X7 software. The co-occurrence matrixes were built through Excel 2010, and the visualized networks were drawn using Ucinet 6.0. The connection and changes of domain subject knowledge of all core key words among 3 stage groups and their frequencies were observed and analyzed. Results The numbers of enrolled articles on fetal CHD of 3 stage groups above mentioned were 94, 182 and 1 182, respectively. The visualized network of fetal CHD study in China was successfully built.The key words ofprenatal examinationandechocardiographywere in the central position of the social network in all 3 stage groups.A total of 20 core key words on fetal CHD were in 1976-1995 year group; 35 core key words were in 1996-2005 year group,intrauterine growth retardationgradually closed to central position, and the new words ofextracardial anomaliesandpregnant diseasewere first appeared and located in the second gradation; 55 core key words were in 2006-2015 year group, and the number of core key words increased in the central part includingheart defects,blood flow spectrum of ductus venosusandTei index, etc., and new core key words mostly located on the edge area of the network. Conclusions The subject knowledge of fetal CHD originated from the middle 1970s in China. Taken the advantage of fetal echocardiography development, fetal CHD studies burst out in recent ten years.The knowledge of fetal CHD, prenatal diagnosis and assessment of fetus achieved remarkable progress.Now the clinic treatment of fetal cardiac intervention is still in the exploration stage and more prospective studies are needed. Key words: Congenital heart disease; Co-word analysis; Visualized analysis; Fetus