• Nicolas Paul, Valentina Albrecht, Claudia Denke, Claudia D Spies, Henning Krampe, and Björn Weiss.
• Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Anesthesiology and Operative Intensive Care Medicine, Campus Charité Mitte and Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
• Medicina (Kaunas). 2022 Jan 23; 58 (2).

AbstractBackground and Objectives: In 2012, the umbrella term post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) was introduced to capture functional long-term impairments of survivors of critical illness. We present a bibliometric network analysis of the PICS research field. Materials and Methods: The Web of Science core database was searched for articles published in 2012 or later using 'post-intensive care syndrome' and variant spellings. Using VOSviewer, we computed co-authorship networks of countries, institutions, and authors, as well as keyword co-occurrence networks. We determined each country's relative research effort and Category Normalized Citation Index over time and analyzed the 100 most-cited articles with respect to article type, country of origin, and publishing journal. Results: Our search yielded 379 articles, of which 373 were analyzed. Annual PICS research output increased from 11 (2012) to 95 articles (2020). Most PICS research originates from the US, followed by England, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany. We found various collaborations between countries, institutions, and authors, with recent collaborative networks of English and Australian institutions. Article keywords cover aspects of cognitive, mental health, and physical impairments, and more recently, COVID-19. Only a few keywords and articles pertained to PICS prevention and treatment. Conclusions: Our analysis of Web of Science-indexed PICS articles highlights the stark increase in PICS research output in recent years, primarily originating from US- and Europe-based authors and institutions. Despite the research field's growth, knowledge gaps with respect to PICS prevention and treatment remain.

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