Global research production pertaining to gastrointestinal involvement in COVID-19: A bibliometric and visualised study

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic that can cause diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting, and abdominal pain, among other gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. AIM: To perform a bibliometric analysis of the global research production pertaining to GI involvement in COVID-19. METHODS: The Scopus database was used to search the global literature on GI involvement in COVID-19 during 2020. A bibliometric review of these publications was also performed using VOSviewer. RESULTS: Scopus had published 95615 documents on COVID-19 in all areas of research at the time of data collection. In total, 1267 publications on the topic of GI and COVID-19 were identified. Research articles (n = 606; 47.83%), letters (293; 23.13%), and reviews (186; 14.68%) were the most popular types of documents. The most productive countries and institutions in this field were the United States and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. The most cited paper was Xiao et al, which was published in Gastroenterology as a brief communication, with 798 citations. This paper provides evidence for GI infection of COVID-19 and its possible faecal–oral transmission route. In the term cluster analysis, there were two frontiers in this field: GI manifestations among COVID-19 patients and the implications of COVID-19 for the gastroenterologist. CONCLUSION: GI manifestations among COVID-19 patients and implications of COVID-19 for gastroenterologists were of interest, especially in the early stages of the pandemic.