Thirty years of research on negative symptoms of schizophrenia: A scientometric analysis of hotspots, bursts, and research trends

Michel Sabe; Chaomei Chen; Natacha Perez; Marco Solmi; Armida Mucci; Silvana Galderisi; Gregory P Strauss; Stefan Kaiser

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104979

Thirty years of research on negative symptoms of schizophrenia: A scientometric analysis of hotspots, bursts, and research trends

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2023 Jan:144:104979. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104979. Epub 2022 Dec 1.

Authors

Michel Sabe¹, Chaomei Chen², Natacha Perez³, Marco Solmi⁴, Armida Mucci⁵, Silvana Galderisi⁵, Gregory P Strauss⁶, Stefan Kaiser³

Affiliations

¹ Division of Adult Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland. Electronic address: michel.sabe@hcuge.ch.
² College of Computing & Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
³ Division of Adult Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Department of Mental Health, The Ottawa Hospital, Ontario, Canada; Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) Clinical Epidemiology Program University of Ottawa, Ontario, Ottawa; School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Naples, Italy.
⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.

PMID: 36463972
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104979

Abstract

Research on negative symptoms of schizophrenia has received renewed interest since the 1980s. A scientometric analysis that objectively maps scientific knowledge, with changes in recent trends, is currently lacking. We searched the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) on December 17, 2021 using relevant keywords. R-bibliometrix and CiteSpace were used to perform the analysis. We retrieved 27,568 references published between 1966 and 2022. An exponential rise in scientific interest was observed, with an average annual growth rate in publications of 16.56% from 1990 to 2010. The co-cited reference network that was retrieved presented 24 different clusters with a well-structured network (Q=0.7921; S=0.9016). Two distinct major research trends were identified: research on the conceptualization and treatment of negative symptoms. The latest trends in research on negative symptoms include evidence synthesis, nonpharmacological treatments, and computational psychiatry. Scientometric analyses provide a useful summary of changes in negative symptom research across time by identifying intellectual turning point papers and emerging trends. These results will be informative for systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and generating novel hypotheses.

Keywords: Alogia; Anhedonia; Asociality; Avolition; Bibliometric; Blunted affect; Network; Psychosis.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Concept Formation
Humans
Psychiatry*
Schizophrenia* / diagnosis
Systematic Reviews as Topic