The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on microbiology-immunology publications: Bibliometric analysis and visualization

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study is to visualize the most cited publications, the most frequently used keywords, and the topics studied in the field of "Microbiology -Immunology" before and during the pandemic and to reveal the differences between the two periods. Material and Methods: Studies registered in the Scopus database and published in the field of "Microbiology-Immunology" in 2019 and 2022 were included in the study. Data analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer program. In the keyword analysis, the most recently published and the top 2000 most cited publications in 2019 and 2022 were evaluated.Results: The most frequently used keywords in the most recent publications in 2019 were "Medicago truncatula", "malaria" and "immunotherapy", while the most cited keywords were "inflammation","microbiome" and "immunotherapy". In 2019, it was determined that most studies were on immunotherapy. In 2022, the top three most frequently used keywords in the most recently published publications were "malaria", "neuroinflammation" and "inflammation", while the most cited publications were "COVID-19", "SARS-CoV-2" and "vaccination". As a result of the keyword analysis, it was determined that the most frequently published topics and the most cited topics were different from each other in the analysis of current studies in 2022.Discussion: Since our study reveals the changes in the literature related to our field, we think that it will be a guide in planning new studies. We believe that periodic repetition of bibliometric analyses and keyword mapping studies will contribute to the quantitative and qualitative development of scientific productivity in our field.