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. 2024 Apr 23;14(3):672-684.
doi: 10.3390/clinpract14030054.

A Worldwide Bibliometric Analysis of Published Literature Assessing Fear of COVID-19

Jesús Cebrino  1 , Silvia Portero de la Cruz  2   3
Affiliations

A Worldwide Bibliometric Analysis of Published Literature Assessing Fear of COVID-19

Jesús Cebrino et al. Clin Pract. .

Abstract

Many people experience intense fear of COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive visual overview of the published literature from 2020 to 2022 assessing fear of COVID-19. From 2020 to 2022, we employed the Scopus database to conduct a bibliometric analysis. We used the VOSviewer program to perform the author co-citation analysis, Mapchart to produce a worldwide map, and Wordart to make a word cloud image. From the 1769 records examined, 1654 (93.50%) were articles, with English being the most common language (96.31%). From 2020 to 2022, annual citations experienced significant growth (R2 = 99.91%; p = 0.0195). The Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM, France) and China led in terms of publication output (n = 36; n = 255). M. D. Griffiths authored the highest number of articles (n = 21). The most active journal was the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (n = 146), and the most prevalent keyword was "human/s" (11.51%). This bibliometric analysis evaluates the quality of the research on fear of the pandemic and the crisis management of COVID-19, which can provide managers and researchers with crucial insights for future decision making.

Keywords: COVID-19; bibliometric; fear; mental health; publications.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram of the publication selection process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Language of publications assessing fear of COVID-19 (2020–2022).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Author co-citation map related to published literature assessing fear of COVID-19 (2020–2022).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Worldwide distribution of publications on literature assessing fear of COVID-19 (2020–2022).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Tag crowd for keywords related to literature assessing fear of COVID-19 (2020–2022).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.

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