Scoping Review: Where Do We Stand and What Directions Should We Take?

OBJECTIVES: This study attempted to use bibliometrics to summarize the comprehensive knowledge graph, research hotspot and future direction of scoping reviews research, and provide reference for future research.

METHODS: This study conducted a comprehensive search of the Scopus database on July 12, 2023. Microsoft Excel 2021 was used to present basic information about the literature included in this study. VOSviewer and the R-bibliometrix package were used to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the included studies.

RESULTS: A total of 20,354 publications were included. The number of publications is increasing year by year, with an explosive growth in the period from 2018 to 2022. Most of these publications came from Canada, followed by the USA. Tricco AC of the University of Toronto in Canada has produced the most publications. The cooperation analysis of the authors found that the cooperation relationship was close only within the cooperative groups, and the cooperation between different groups was relatively weak. BMJ Open was the most popular journal. The analysis of keywords found that public health, COVID-19, mental health, rehabilitation, technology and telemedicine were current research hotspots. The keyword cluster analysis formed a total of seven clusters, revealing that the scoping reviews mainly focused on seven topics, namely mental health, the methodological exploration of scoping review, public health service policy, nursing education, application outcome of surgical procedure, and the population differences of scoping reviews. In addition, the content analysis of keywords mainly focused on diseases, pathogenic factors, diagnostic methods, treatment methods, outcome indicators and methodology.

CONCLUSIONS: This was the first bibliometrics study to comprehensively summarize the research trend and development status of scoping reviews, which revealed the general situation of literature related to scoping reviews and determined the recent research frontiers and hot directions.