Long COVID Research, 2020–2024: A PubMed-Based Bibliometric Analysis, 2025, Honorato-Cia et al

Long COVID Research, 2020–2024: A PubMed-Based Bibliometric Analysis

Cristina Honorato-Cia, Elena Cacho-Asenjo, Antonio Martinez-Simon, Irene Aquerreta, Jorge M. Núñez-Córdoba

(Line breaks added)

Abstract
Long COVID is a SARS-CoV-2 infection-associated chronic condition with great potential to impact health and socioeconomic outcomes. The research efforts to face the challenges related to long COVID have resulted in a substantial amount of publications, which warrants the need for bibliometric profiling.

This is a large-scale PubMed-based bibliometric analysis of more than 390,000 COVID-19 publications. The overall aim was to update the profile of long COVID publications in comparison with the rest of the COVID-19 scientific literature through December 2024.

The estimated proportion of long COVID publications was relatively low (2.3% of all COVID-19 publications), although the cumulative frequency (n = 8928) continues to pose a challenge for proper information management. Currently, “treatment” and “mechanism” appear to be the most predominant research topics in the long COVID literature. Interestingly, this evaluation revealed a distinctive profile of the long COVID literature, with a clear preponderance of “case report” and “mechanism” research topics when compared with other COVID-19 publications. This evaluation also identified and ranked the most prolific scientific journals in the production of long COVID-related publications.

This study may improve the visibility of long COVID research and contribute to the management of the growing scientific knowledge on long COVID.

Link | PDF (Healthcare) [Open Access]

 

That is in fact low if the proportion of those getting long COVID is more like 5-30%