Yang C, Zhang K, Wang Q, Wang S, Li H, Zhang K. Global research status and trends of somatic symptom disorder: A bibliometric study. World J Psychiatry 2025; 15(1): 100730 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i1.100730]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Kai Zhang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 64 Chaohu North Road, Hefei 238000, Anhui Province, China. zhangkai@ahmu.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Psychology
Article-Type of This Article
Scientometrics
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Jan 19, 2025; 15(1): 100730 Published online Jan 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i1.100730
Global research status and trends of somatic symptom disorder: A bibliometric study
Chao Yang, Kun Zhang, Qian Wang, Shuai Wang, Huan Li, Kai Zhang
Chao Yang, Huan Li, Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Luhe Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100001, China
Kun Zhang, Kai Zhang, Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 238000, Anhui Province, China
Qian Wang, School of Medicine, Jiangxi University of Technology, Nanchang 510001, Jiangxi Province, China
Shuai Wang, School of Public Health, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-first authors: Chao Yang and Kun Zhang.
Co-corresponding authors: Huan Li and Kai Zhang.
Author contributions: Yang C and Zhang K designed the study; Wang S, Li H, Wang Q and Zhang K contributed to the analysis of the manuscript; All authors involved in the data, writing of this article, all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kai Zhang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 64 Chaohu North Road, Hefei 238000, Anhui Province, China. zhangkai@ahmu.edu.cn
Received: August 24, 2024 Revised: November 3, 2024 Accepted: December 6, 2024 Published online: January 19, 2025 Processing time: 115 Days and 18.1 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
With the growing scholarly and clinical fascination with somatic symptom disorder (SSD), a bibliometric analysis is lacking.
AIM
To conduct a bibliometric analysis to investigate the current status and frontiers of SSD.
METHODS
The documents related to SSD are obtained from the web of science core collection database (WoSCC), and VOSviewer 1.6.16 from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2023, and the WoSCC’s literature analysis wire were used to conduct the bibliometric analysis.
RESULTS
A total of 567 documents related to SSD were included, and 2325 authors across 947 institutions from 57 countries/regions have contributed to SSD research, published in 277 journals. The most productive author, institution, country and journal were Löwe B, University of Hamburg, Germany, and Journal of Psychosomatic Research respectively. The first high-cited document was published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research in 2013 by Dimsdale JE and colleagues, which explored the rationale behind the SSD diagnosis introduction in diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the main research hotspots and frontiers in the field of SSD are validity and reliability of the SSD criteria, functional impairment of SSD, and the treatment for SSD. More high-quality studies are needed to assess the diagnosis and treatment of SSD.
Core Tip: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the somatic symptom disorder (SSD). The main research hotspots and frontiers in the field of SSD are validity and reliability of the SSD criteria, functional impairment of SSD, and the treatment for SSD. More high-quality studies are needed to assess the diagnosis and treatment of SSD.
