key: cord-0934166-7yfgc378 authors: Pasin, O.; Pasin, T. title: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF RHEUMATOLOGY AND COVID-19 RESEARCHES date: 2021-04-06 journal: nan DOI: 10.1101/2021.03.31.21254695 sha: 98f85fe1c3a9220f3551ea0b62f7d8fd997f145f doc_id: 934166 cord_uid: 7yfgc378 Objectives: COVID-19 has had a substantial impact on rheumatology. This study provides a general overview of studies on rheumatology and COVID-19. Methods: Data were taken from the Web of Science (WoS) website. Analysis and network visualization mapping processes were carried out using VOSviewer. A total of 234 publications were analyzed, and the correlations between citation numbers and reference counts, usage counts and page numbers were analyzed with Spearman correlation coefficients. Results: The average number of citations per item was 6.03. The studies were cited 1,411 times in total, and 1,121 times without self-citations. The countries with the highest number of publications on rheumatology and COVID-19 were the USA and England; the countries with the highest number of citations were Italy and the USA, and Jinoos Yazdany was the most cited author. The Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases was the most cited journal, whereas the highest number of articles on rheumatology and COVID-19 were published in Arthritis and Rheumatology. Conclusions: Bibliometric analysis of rheumatology and COVID-19 can be useful to future studies because it provides a general perspective on the studies. This study provides an insight into the development of publications on rheumatology during the COVID-19 pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 syndrome), a new member of the coronavirus family, was first detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The virus causes fever, cough, fatigue, loss of taste and smell, dyspnea, myalgia, vomiting, diarrhea and progressive diseases. Severe forms can cause acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and death, with interstitial lung involvement accompanied by alveolar damage [1] [2] [3] . Patients with rheumatism are considered to be a COVID-19 risk group. When patients with rheumatological diseases are diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection, they should immediately contact their rheumatologist. Rheumatologic diseases are heterogeneous. Corticosteroids, synthetic and biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) increase the risk of disease aggravation because they cause immunosuppression [4] . It is essential to understand what is driving the increased risk of COVID-19-related deaths in rheumatologic patients during the pandemic. Hydroxychloroquine, used for the treatment of rheumatological diseases, was used in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, but subsequent clinical trials have not found any benefit [5] . Cytokine inhibitor drugs, such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6) inhibitors, were investigated to determine their effectiveness in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infections and complications, including cytokine-storm [6] . Rheumatism patients are at risk of developing infections due to the disease itself, the drugs they use, and their more serious prognosis. The course of COVID-19 in individuals with rheumatological diseases could not be clearly determined because COVID-19 is a new and recently identified virus, and rheumatic diseases are less common than other diseases. This study uses bibliometric methods to analyze publications on rheumatology and COVID-19. The Web of Science (WoS) Core Collections was used to find publications for analysis. The documents were saved in ANSI format, and the bibliometric analysis and all other processes were carried out with VOSviewer (version 1.6.16). The dataset is open source, so there is no need for approval by an ethical committee. For the analysis, we used the following keywords: "COVID-19" and "Rheumatology"; "Coronavirus" and "Rheumatology"; "2019-nCoV" and "Rheumatology"; "SARS-CoV-2" and "Rheumatology"; "COVID-19" and "Rheumatic Disease"; "Coronavirus" and "Rheumatic Disease"; "2019-nCoV" and "Rheumatic Disease"; "SARS-CoV-2" and "Rheumatic Disease"; "COVID-19" and "Rheumatism"; "Coronavirus" and "Rheumatism"; "2019-nCoV" and "Rheumatism"; and "SARS-CoV-2" and "Rheumatism." The analyzed works (234 in total) were published in 2020 and 2021 and include articles and abstracts. The relationships between citation numbers and some related variables were analyzed with Spearman correlation coefficients, and p-values are reported and tested at a significance level of 0.05 using IBM SPSS Statistics 21. The results show that 46.58% (109) of the documents were articles and 14.95% were meeting (seminers etc) articles. Table 1 shows the document types that were analyzed. The studies were cited 1,411 times in total, and 1,121 times without self-citations. Most publications, 216 All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted April 6, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254695 doi: medRxiv preprint (92.308%), were written and published in English, followed by 13 (5.556%) in German, and the remaining five (2.137%) were in Spanish. Table 2 shows the top ten countries ranked by number of articles and citations. The highest number of articles were from the USA, England, Italy, Germany, Canada, Spain, Australia, Turkey, France, and New Zealand. The most cited publications were from Italy, with 672 citations. Table 3 shows the top ten authors ranked by number of documents and citations. For the purpose of analysis, the minimum number of documents per author was set at five. only ten out of all the authors analyzed contributed to at least five publications. Jinoos Yazdany's articles on rheumatology and COVID-19 were the most cited. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted April 6, 2021. ; Table 3 lists the organizations that submitted the most articles for publication. The minimum number of documents per organization was set at five. Taking into account the numbers of documents and citations, the ten most active institutions were the University of California San 2013. This count can increase or remain static over time [7] . There were statistically significant relationships between the number of citations and the variables in the table (p < 0.001; p = 0.005). All the relationships were positive, but relationship strengths were low (r = 0.344; r = 0.274; r = 0.449; r = 0.182) ( Table 4) . Patients with rheumatism are at risk of developing infections due to the disease itself, the drugs they use, and their more serious prognosis during the pandemic. The course of COVID-19 in All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted April 6, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254695 doi: medRxiv preprint individuals with rheumatological diseases could not be clearly determined because COVID-19 is a new and recently identified virus, and rheumatic diseases are less common than other diseases. The use of cortisone for the treatment of rheumatological diseases causes an increase in overall infection rates, and especially the rate of viral infections, depending on the dose, duration of treatment, and total dosage-but even at dosages considered safe, there is an increased risk of infection. Fredi and friends indicate that patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases do not appear to have a milder form of COVID-19 pneumonia than the controls [8] . Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate papers on rheumatology diseases and COVID-19. The bibliometric analysis summarized 234 publications on rheumatology and COVID-19, which provides an insight into publications and citations by organization, country and author. There is a limitation: the only source of publications was the WoS core. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first bibliometric analysis on rheumatology and COVID-19, which could be useful for future studies. No financial support was taken in this article. The authors declare that there is no other conflict of interest to disclose. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. USA 75 Italy 672 England 40 USA 454 Italy 30 England 300 Germany 24 Canada 293 Canada 23 Spain 255 Spain 18 Australia 240 Australia 14 Germany 236 Turkey 12 France 207 All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted April 6, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254695 doi: medRxiv preprint All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted April 6, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254695 doi: medRxiv preprint A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin Characteristics of and Important Lessons From the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak in China: Summary of a Report of 72 314 Cases From the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study Safety of synthetic and biological DMARDs: a systematic literature review informing the 2019 update of the EULAR recommendations for the management of rheumatoid arthrit Drug treatments for COVID-19: living systematic review and network meta-analysis COVID-19: consider cytokine storm syndromes and immunosuppression Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection Help Usage Count Accessed 15 COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic diseases in northern Italy: a single-centre observational and case-control study