Mapping the intellectual structure of chronic heart failure: A co-word analysis

Abstract

Co-word analysis is considered as an important method to explore the network concept in different fields. This technique can reveal the knowledge structure in a given research area. This research attempts to map and analyze the thematic structure of knowledge in “Chronic Heart Failure” studies using co-word analysis. This article employed co-word analysis to map and analyze the conceptual and thematic structure of Chronic Heart Failure. The population comprised 11967 documents (articles, reviews, and proceedings) in “Chronic Heart Failure” during the period of 2000 to 2015, which have been indexed in the Web of Science (WoS). According to the results, the keywords “Cardiac Resynchronization” and “Echocardiography” were the most frequent terms. Moreover, the co-occurrences of “Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy” and “Defibrillators Implantable” have the highest frequency among other pairs. Finally, hierarchical clustering analysis has led to the formation of seven subject clusters in “Chronic Heart Failure” studies. It seems that clusters “Cardiac Function and Its Effective Factors” and “Risk Factors for Heart Diseases” have a high centrality and density in the network structure of “Chronic Heart Failure” studies.